The Pull of His Gravity
by phaedraphelan
Summary: The Del Gruner case, Kitty's departure and the tragedy of Andrew's death . . . How will all of these impact the relationship between Sherlock and Joan, as they rebuild and discover what they have together? All serious Joanlock of course with analysis of the chemistry between the two. This is an extension from that point with a case thrown in for good measure. Please review.
1. Chapter 1

**The Pull of His Gravity**

**By phaedraphelan**

**Word count 9,629**

Summary: Sherlock and Joan are close to becoming housemates again. Will it happen and if it does, will it be is as it was before or completely different? How will it be when Kitty has left? And what of Andrew?

Disclaimer: Elementary is the artistic property of CBS and no infringement is intention is intended.

**It was two in the morning and the solving of the final questions of the guilt of Adelbert Gruner had so stimulated them both that sleep would have been impossible. They left the hospital where Gruner was being held and went out into the chill of the New York street to a Pizza Place near the precinct to celebrate the end of this difficult case with Gregson and Bell. Sherlock finally caught Joan's hand in his and held it tightly as things wound down.**

**Gregson took note of Sherlock's closeness to Watson and finally felt it a good moment to speak on it.**

**"You two seem to be pretty close these days?**

**Sherlock and Joan looked at each other and flushed helplessly, unable to hide their response to each other.**

**"We have a certain 'understanding,' as you would say here in America, Captain. We are finding our way . . . together, I would say, wouldn't you, Joan?"**

**"Yes, I would say so," Joan said flushing even more deeply now and dropping her head.**

**"Captain, with that in mind I think that Joan and I need to decompress from this case. It has been particularly unsettling. Please excuse us. We will talk in a day or two."**

**Sherlock and Joan found that they had to leave their friends and colleagues in the face of their feelings. So when Sherlock's whistle procured a taxi for them, they hurriedly got in and relaxed against the smooth brown leather seats.**

**"Watson . . . Please. I am so wired tonight. More than anything I wish that I could sleep. Kitty should be landing in London in a couple of hours. I think that we are back where we started somehow, and yet we have come to face with what we really are to each other, haven't we?"**

**"Yes, we have and we are, Sherlock. How do you propose we relax?"**

**"Perhaps you would help me, my dear Watson," Sherlock said, catching her hand in his again and drawing her close to him in the dark confines of the taxi. "When we get back to the brownstone, will you stay with me tonight."**

** A powerful masculine growl sounded deep in his throat as he let his hand slip along Joan's soft inner thigh and drew her over onto him so that she was straddled across his lap, opening her up completely to be examined by his probing fingertips. **

**"I want nothing more than to go to sleep with you in my bed, Joan. It will take the rest of the night for us to finish this. Lord, your arse feels like you need attention tonight."**

**Joan giggled softly at Sherlock's assessment of the state of her flesh as he murmured something about "inflated genitalia," but as his fingers continued their own intimate exploration, her body quivered in response to his touch.**

**"We seem to be doing this sort of thing often these days, Sherlock," Joan gasped, as her own passionate response to Sherlock's touch overwhelmed her. "Oh, Sherlock . . ."  
**

**It was not the first time of late that Sherlock had assessed her sexual need and proffered a solution of his making, and Joan had begun to find herself often in Sherlock's bed and Joan knew that she would spend this night with Sherlock. Since becoming so close again, each time they found themselves in bed together it had seemed so right, that now her body began to waken and tingle with anticipation as soon as Sherlock's hand touched her thigh and began to rub it with the roughness of his thumb in that subtle and sensual way of his. And she always wanted him just as much as he wanted her. Then when he buried his face in her breasts, inhaling the scent of her perfume, Joan wrapped her arms around Sherlock, and she began to tremble as she felt her whole body melt in response to his.**

**"Joan . . . Joan, I desire you tonight," he murmured. "Please tell me that you need to be with me tonight as much as I." (****Sherlock, ever the gentleman, never presumed upon her in sexual matters, but always asked permission to seek pleasure with Joan.)**

**"Yes! Yes! You know already what I need. I want you just as much."**

**As the taxi rolled up to the brownstone now, they disengaged themselves from each other with difficulty, Sherlock paid for the cab and they quickly ran up the steps to the house.**

**When they got inside, Sherlock hurriedly helped Joan with her coat and then he caught her up in his arms, pushed her up against the hallway wall and kissed her so hard that it took her breath away.**

**"Oh, Joan . . . Joan, I want you so," he groaned as he slipped his hand under her sweater, so he could loosen her bra and caress her breasts. "Please, Joan! Allow me to touch you and touch me."**

**"Yes . . . yes, you may touch me . . . and I will touch you."**

**Joan was helping Sherlock with his clothes. He was so overwhelmed that he had difficulty undressing himself because his hands began to shake.**

**"Please . . . Please . . . Sherlock, let me help you," Joan said as she loosened his belt, unfastened his trousers and without hesitation gripped his already swollen parts. "We need to go find your bed right now, baby." **

**"Oh, God! Joan, hold me like that! Yes! Yes! Thank you! Oh, God!"**

**Sherlock and Joan ran into his bedroom and lay down together in his huge mahogany sleigh bed, and he cried out her name as he mounted her and took her there without further ado.**

**"Joan! Joan! Yes, woman!"**

**"Sherlock, I love you to fill me the way you do . . . I want you! Please, Sherlock! Ooh! Yes, Sherlock!"**

**Then the rhythm of coitus captured them both as they found perfection of intercourse, groaning from the depths of their souls, the pleasure taking complete hold of them as they rocked together. Knowing that they were completely alone in the old house now with no possibility of interruption only released even more of the passions pent up in them as Sherlock and Joan gave attention to their desperate need.**

**"Oh, God, Joan, you are so beautiful and I. . . I need this so from you. I have never needed anyone but I need you, woman. I need the comfort of your flesh and spirit. Joan . . . Joan, thank you for loving me this way. Oh, Joan . . . Joan . . . love!" **

**Sherlock was talking to her, telling her about her body, telling her in his own inimitable way how she made him feel when she gave herself so generously to him and his words opened her heart so completely that Joan began to tremble in ecstasy, her eyes rolling about in her head as she experienced a powerful response deep inside her in spasm after spasm, becoming nearly completely incoherent in a series of soft snorting and snuffling sounds that Sherlock had never heard come from the lips of any woman.**

**"God help us! Joan!" Sherlock cried out as he felt the powerful spasms rippling throughout her body. "Hold on, luv! I will take you all the way! Let me take you there!"**

**"Yes . . . Yes!" Joan gasped helplessly. "Ooh, help me, Sherlock!"**

**"Yes, luv, yes. You have me! I'm here!"**

**Joan's flesh contracted powerfully around his again and again and this time Sherlock cried out and lost it completely, growling and grunting upon her like a wild man as he possessed her.**

**"Sherlock . . . Ooh, Ooh!"**

** Joan cried out and swooned, rocked to her very foundations in a profound orgasm that surged throughout her body and then went on and on until Sherlock's own pelvis began to jerk in concert with hers and they both saw the glorious brilliance of the climax together. **

**At that Joan began to sob ****uncontrollably, her whole body going completely weak in his arms, her very soul surrendering to Sherlock as he snorted and grunted lustily, his body continuing in spasm after spasm upon hers, as he delivered his life force into the depths of her with a power that rendered him momentarily blind and took Joan's breath away.**

**"Lord help us! Aargh! Aargh! Oh, God!"**

**"Sherlock! Ooh. . . ooh, yes!"**

**"Dear Joan, my lovely Joan . . . Joan," Sherlock was instantly repentant for his powerful use of her and wept also as he held Joan close to his throbbing heart, kissing her mouth tenderly over and over. "Is it all right, luv? Are you all right?"**

**"It's all right, Sherlock. It's perfect. . . just . . . that what you gave me . . . went so deep . . . so far beyond anything I have ever experienced. I thought that you had taken me as far as I could go, but it was . . . more, even more this time."**

**"You were quite carried away, luv," Sherlock murmured.**

**"What is it? I. . . I think it's because I trust you so implicitly. I trust you with my body and with my soul. Ooh, Sherlock!"**

**Joan trembled in his arms as frissons of pleasure continued to envelop her as she**** held him upon her breasts as he suckled there, and Joan continued running her hands through his hair, enjoying the sensation of the rough stubble of his beard upon her breasts as the warmth of the afterglow began to settle down upon them.**

**Sherlock felt tears spring to his eyes anew as they lay together in the postlude to their intense lovemaking. He was overwhelmed.**

**"You are crying, baby," Joan whispered. **

** "Your beauty in your expression in that intimate moment, luv . . . that supreme moment when you came and surrendered. . . the sounds you made, the lovely snorting and snuffling sounds of your pleasure, and then you called my name the way you did."**

**"When I was with you in that moment, I was lost completely. I have to tell you that I . . . ****I love you so."**

**The declaration of love slipped from Joan's lips so easily and Sherlock was stunned, his heart welling up with emotion as he responded to her.**

**"Joan, don't you know that I worship you? I adore you!"**

**"Sherlock . . . baby . . . yes, I love you so much. I have wanted to tell you this so many times."**

**"God, Joan, I love you more than anyone in the world!"**

**They kissed now so passionately, so deeply, so hungrily, clinging to each other desperately, weeping with the declaration that had sprung so easily from their lips for the first time.**

**"Oh, Sherlock, I love you . . . love you so."**

**Suddenly their excitement increased to the point that Sherlock groaned as his ardor peaked again and he drew Joan onto him and they joined in an intercourse that was different in that it was so tender and profound that it was unlike any joining they had previously experienced. His profound thrusts so completely possessed her that they both wept as they stared into each other's eyes and rocked to climax together and blue-white stars burst in their brains at that moment when their bodies went rigid in spasms of exquisite pleasure.**

**"Woman . . . woman, I love you . . . adore you."**

**"Yes . . . yes . . . Sherlock . . . baby, just hold me."**

**Sherlock kissed her tenderly over and over until they gradually fell asleep in each other's arms. They slept hard, exhausted emotionally from the whole experience of the Gruner case and then this night by the intensity of their coming together, something that had been unlike anything either of them had ever experienced or even imagined.**

**When Joan awakened just after dawn, Sherlock was sleeping with his arms wound around her. She felt the comforting throb of his heartbeat against her back and remembered the passionate episode between them a few hours earlier. She still felt warm inside her body from Sherlock's ministrations. He was a consummate lover who always sensed her needs and seemed to know endless ways to bring her pleasure. With his powerful libido he was always ready to attend to her and Joan continued to find herself more and more uninhibited in their sexual interaction. There was no need to try to hold back anything from Sherlock. She recalled to mind the last time previously they had been together intimately when they were in the middle of the Del Gruner case.**

_**Joan had come back to the brownstone after attending the charity function for the Hearth and Home Foundation. She had dressed elegantly for the affair so as to blend in with the classy crowd there, but she also these days found herself dressing for Sherlock. She loved it when he looked at her simply as a man looks at his woman. He would simply stop in his tracks and she would feel his eyes upon her, a wide-eyed passionate stare that he was helpless to control. **_

_**This evening the gown she wore was very modest in the front, but dipped nearly to the waist in back, revealing an expanse of flawless citrine skin decorated with a delicate sprinkling of freckles below her shoulder blades. When she turned to walk away from Sherlock, and dropped her velvet cloak, she heard Sherlock catch his breath at the sight of her bare back. She stood still and waited for him, waited for her man to come to her, knowing that he would come to her, wanting him to come to her in the worst way. **_

_**The sight of Joan's bare back had hit Sherlock like a ton of bricks in the pit of his belly. Since they had been so busy on the case, they had not really taken any time for themselves. That had always been the way they worked. They had generally tried to ignore the sexual tension that rose up between them at times. But things had changed since the first time they came together sexually. Now the sensation in his gonads that came on him in this moment was impossible to ignore as all thoughts of anything but Joan as a woman flew from his mind. **_

_**That night Sherlock strode across the room in seconds, coming behind Joan, kissing her on the back of her neck and then again and again upon her lovely back, as his hands released the gown's fastenings so that it dropped to the floor in a silken heap, leaving Joan wearing just the briefest of red silk panties which Sherlock gently pushed down off her hips so that they ended up on the floor alongside her elegant gown.**_

_**"Oh, God, Joan, we do need a few moments, don't we?" **_

_**"Yes! Oh, yes! I think so, Sherlock."**_

_**"These freckles on your back . . . I've never seen them. They are lovely."**_

_**Sherlock continued to kiss her neck and shoulders and to inhale the scent of her and of her Mitsouko perfume, his nostrils flaring wide open as he groaned his need to her. **_

_**"Your beauty brings me to my knees, luv. I need you like I need to breathe. Do you need me in the same way?"**_

_**"Yes! Oh, yes, Sherlock."**_

_**"I dare say we must take . . . a . . . a break for a little while, darling."**_

_**"Yes, Sherlock," Joan said softly.**_

_**Sherlock turned Joan to face him and pulled out the long jeweled pins that held her elegantly coiffed hair in place and Joan shook her hair out, letting her ebony locks fall down on her shoulders.**_

_**"Forgive me for loosening your hair. It is altogether lovely, but I need to see it on your shoulders."**_

_**"Do what you want, Sherlock. You can do whatever you want with me."**_

_**"All the blood in my body seems to be surging in just one direction, luv. No additional processes requiring thought of a higher nature will take place tonight. May I allow my passions to lead me?"**_

_**"Yes, you may do whatever you wish, Sherlock."**_

_**"I will never hurt you, Joan," he whispered. "Were I ever to bruise you, it would be in a moment of passion so intense that I would have lost my mind and I beg your forgiveness in advance for any such transgression on my part."**_

_**Sherlock unbuttoned his shirt, loosened his trousers and stepped out of them and sat down on the nearby sofa and gently drew Joan across his lap so that she was straddling him and took her into his arms and groaned softly in agony as he stared at the bruises on her arm that Gruner had inflicted. He tenderly kissed her each of the bruises on her arm with his lips and then he resumed kissing her all over her bare breasts and shoulders at the same time inhaling the scent of her, till finally he kissed her on her open mouth again as he eased Joan down onto his needy flesh and they connected as man and woman.**_

**Now as Joan lay in his arms in the predawn hours, she remembered her lover's touch, remembered how he had completely unhinged her earlier as she was being totally satisfied in her flesh and she knew that she had found the love of her life. No man had ever brought her a vaginal orgasm as complete as Sherlock had from the very first time they came together. And each time they came together she found that she gave more and it was more intense than the time before. **

**"Sherlock," Joan whispered softly. "I have to tell you. I do love being with you."**

**"I love you . . . more than anyone, more that anyone in the whole world, Joan," Sherlock murmured sleepily as they lay spooning. "I finally realize that a true union of souls is not diminished, but is in reality enhanced by a powerful sexual component. When I am with you what I experience has no relationship to the previous sexual liaisons based upon need and availability. Would you agree with that premise, luv? Please tell me that you agree, that this is no common thing for you, just as it is no common thing for me."**

**"Oh, no, Sherlock . . . Sherlock, I have never experienced this with anyone. Please, Sherlock, just hold me tight for another moment, baby. I'm still quivering every time I remember. I can't stop quivering inside now. Please help me, baby!"**

**And that is what he did. **

**Finally Sherlock and Joan managed to get out of bed and start the day. Sherlock made coffee and Joan made buttered toast and got down the boysenberry jam and they** **sat**** down to share it together at the table.**

**"Sherlock, I want to ask you something. Did you approve of what Kitty did to Del Gruner?"**

**"You refer to her disfiguring him?"**

**"Yes. The way she took matters into her own hands troubled me. I know she was carrying a great deal of hatred because of what he did to her."**

**"I'm surprised that she did not kill him, Joan. I am trying to refrain from judging her in this. I very nearly killed that man last year when I realized that he was connected with your kidnapping. I am not proud of that, Joan, and when I saw how that animal Gruner had bruised your arm two nights ago, I could barely restrain myself from finding him right then and thrashing him to within an inch of his life with my single stick."**

**Joan cast her eyes downward as she tried to absorb the import of Sherlock's words.**

**"I am flattered that you want to protect me, Sherlock, but I don't want you to kill someone for any reason outside of self defense."**

**"Do you realize that if anything were to happen to you, Joan, I would be completely broken, lost forever? Being an ocean away from you nearly ended my sobriety. I dare say that you do not realize the depths of my love for you, woman?"**

**Sherlock stared at Joan, his eyes full of his desire, his need for her and he finally got up from his chair opposite her and came around the table and drew Joan up tight against his muscular frame and gripped her hips so tightly that Joan could feel his body throbbing in excitement against hers. Joan's nostrils flared wide as she simply surrendered to him as he kissed her mouth with all the hunger and passion that was in him as his flesh pushed against hers.**

**"Oh, Sherlock . . . Sherlock," Joan moaned. "You need to let me take care of you."**

**Sherlock picked Joan up in his arms and took her back to his bedroom where they shed their robes without a word and then Sherlock stretched out with her upon his bed staring at her, taking all of her in. Joan opened her arms and legs for him in the position of submission that her culture taught their women, but that she had never demonstrated with any other man in her life. She wanted to submit to him, her need for him completely overwhelming her as she saw his passion cause his features flush a deep ruddy hue that covered his chest and belly couple with a magnificent display of his male nature as he positioned himself over her, ready to take her as his mate. **

** "Sherlock, my Sherlock, I ****give you the Jade Gate. It will always be yours only."**

**"This act now only has meaning with you, Joan. I need you so desperately all the time. When I close my eyes, I see your face when you are in the throes of ecstasy, your beautiful pudenda, the way your lovely Jade ****Gate swells with excitement when you pull your knees up and open them to show all of your parts to me, and I want you so in that moment. All my sensual thoughts culminate in you, luv, no one else," Sherlock murmured into her ear.**

**"Sherlock, I know what you mean. Yes . . . Yes!"**

**As Sherlock began to kiss Joan and caress her, she welcomed him, sighing his name over and over. **

**"Darling . . . my darling Joan, I accept your gift of yourself, your transcendent beauty of mind and body. Please know that I do not take this as something common, luv."**

**"Sherlock . . . I give it all to you. I cannot withstand the power of what I feel for you."**

**Sherlock groaned and as his kisses became hungry upon her mouth and she began to tremble in his arms, moaning and gasping and uttering passionate inarticulate sounds as Sherlock mounted her to take her, causing her to lose all inhibitions as bit by bit he conquered her completely again.**

**"Yes, Sherlock! Yes! Please don't stop. Don't stop for anything!" Joan wailed, wrapping her legs around Sherlock as the rhythm of coitus caught them up and carried them to climax.**

**They lay finally sated, but still joined together, murmuring the love words that had come to mean so much between them.**

**Sherlock's kisses that had been so penetrating and consuming then became tender and gentle as he kissed her cheeks and lips again and again, deeply inhaling the scent of her, as he smoothed her hair and allowed his hands to roam all over her.**

**Joan drew their sheet up over them and in just a few minutes they had fallen asleep again and it was nearly noon wh****en they wakened.**

**Sherlock was up and dressed in comfortable jeans and an old wrinkled tee shirt, puttering about the kitchen, making tea. Joan could hear the sound of his preparations from the bedroom. She got up, showered and put on a grey silk sweater knit top over her bare breasts along with black slacks. She was aware that this was a favorite look of hers from Sherlock's point of view and she enjoyed it when he allowed himself to stare at her that way of his that seemed to strip her bare from head to foot. She was also aware that her lips were puffy and swollen from his kisses, and she smiled, remembering.**

**When she made her way to the kitchen, she found Sherlock with his tea. When he looked up and smiled a bit wistfully, she saw that his lips were swollen as well and she blushed. Sherlock's nostrils flared wide when he stared at the outline of her nipples that was so evident under her sweater, and he winked his approval in ****that almost shy manner that Joan found so endearing.**

**"I especially love the way you look today, Joan. There is just one thing I ask. Will you please let your hair down for me?"**

**Joan loosened her long hair and shook it out so that it fell down on her shoulders.**

**"So, does that please you?" she asked, flirting gently with him with every gesture and movement of her body.**

**"Absolutely, luv," Sherlock replied.**

**"Will you please take your tee shirt off? I want to look at you, too."**

**"Yes, if you will remove your sweater as well."**

**Joan smiled and pulled off her sweater, tossed it aside and sat back in her chair. Sherlock simply stared at her bare breasts absorbing every beautiful detail of them, the gentle flaring of his nostrils and the dilated state of the pupils of his eyes the only indication of the powerful effect the sight of**** her breasts had upon him. Joan's breasts were surprisingly large for a woman of such petite stature and the sight of their creamy and drooping fullness hit Sherlock right in the pit of his belly.**

**"Your breasts are quite beautiful, Joan, indescribably so," Sherlock said simply, unable to say more at the sight of her naked breasts.**

**"Why, thank you, Sherlock," Joan said, flushing slightly.**

** "Now please let's eat breakfast, luv, or we will not eat today."**

**Sherlock and Joan enjoyed morning tea topless together, quietly comfortable with each other.**

**"Joan, do you miss Kitty?" Sherlock finally asked.**

**"Yes, I do. She kind of grew on me. It was kind of like having a teenage daughter, wasn't it?"**

**"I agree. She told me that she loved me before she left. I didn't know what to say, Joan. Did I love her? Perhaps. I don't claim to understand paternal or filial love, but I must accept that it exists. I am just beginning to understand man/woman love."**

**"I think you have that part just about figured out, Sherlock," Joan said softly.**

**"There is so much mystery, so much to learn about us, Joan. I fear I will never learn it all. But the way you and I together felt about Kitty . . . It was special, wasn't it?"**

**"Yes, it was."**

**Joan got up to pour herself another cup of tea and sat down on Sherlock's lap this time and wrapped her arms around him in a warm hug before beginning to drink her tea. Sherlock rested his head upon her bare breasts as they sat in front of the fire reflecting on the exodus of Kitty from their lives.**

**"She was a successful endeavor, Sherlock."**

**"In more ways than you know, Joan. I was in such a bad way in London because of missing you, that I was at the point of losing my sobriety when I decided to work with her. I was unable to see my way clear to go on and then she decided to let me mentor her. She doesn't know it but she made it possible for me to make my way back to you. Otherwise I believe that I would have overdosed and died in London."**

**Joan held his head to her breasts as he buried his face there, running her hand through his hair.**

**"I hope one day I will be able to thank her for that, Sherlock."**

**"I do as well, luv," Sherlock said as he traced his fingers along her flank and gently squeezed her thigh.**

**"I am beginning to understand what it would be like to father children, Joan," Sherlock said simply. "But when I think of procreation, I only think of you. Do you think of procreating? Have you ever wanted a child of your own, a wee one to suckle these lovely udders?" he said as his fingertips grazed her nipples.**

**"I try not to not think about that too much. Do you really think about it?"**

**Sherlock stared at Joan now and his blue green eyes told her all the depth of his feelings. **

**"I fear that I find myself quite intoxicated with you, my darling Joan. And last night that moment when I saw you so overwhelmed, all inhibitions gone when it happened for you. . ."**

**"It keeps getting more and more intense, Sherlock. Was my response last night very unladylike?" Joan flushed deeply in his arms, remembering the sounds she has made, how she had wailed his name again and again.**

**"It was the most beautiful experience of my sexual life, seeing you gasping and snorting and snuffling like that, calling my name the way you do and I . . . I was humbled, Joan."**

**"Sherlock, mmm, you make me crazy when you look at me like that," Joan sighed as she blushed even more before him now.**

**"Let's be crazy for a while then, luv," Sherlock said as he picked her up in his arms and carried her back to his bed.**

**Joan had decided to tell Andrew once and for all that they had no future. He would have to accept that. Nowadays as she had finally found real satisfaction in Sherlock's arms, Joan wanted to definitely end things. She had begun to evade him, find reasons to keep from being with him. It had been weeks since she had been with Andrew sexually, because once she and Sherlock began to have sexual contact she just couldn't at the same time be involved with him any longer. This had caused Andrew to simply conclude that she was either busy with work or perhaps holding out for marriage-thus the introducing of her to his father.**

**All of this was exacerbated by Andrew asking Joan to go to dinner with him and his father together. The moments that Joan had spent with Sherlock had forced her to face the fact that it was Sherlock was the one that she wanted, the one that she loved. **

**"I know what this 'meet the family' is about, Sherlock, and I don't want it. I don't want it at all," Joan had complained about the coming dinner with Andrew's father.**

**Sherlock had observed, somewhat circumspectly that perhaps she didn't really want Andrew at all, that she should face that fact, all the while suppressing his own urge to reveal his heart completely to her.**

**When Joan marched in from her dinner date, she was livid, walking up to Sherlock and punching him as hard as she could on his biceps.**

**"What's the matter with you?" Sherlock asked, as he rubbed his arm.**

**"Why did you have to be right? How do you always know what is good for me?" **

**She strode back and forth and back and forth, grumbling to herself till suddenly Sherlock grabbed her and pulled her up against him.**

**"Don't you realize that I know what you need? I know what you need, woman," Sherlock said and then he kissed her hard on her mouth in a kiss that they both wanted to go on forever and that left Joan limp and weak in his arms.**

**"Oh, God, Sherlock . . . Sherlock," Joan whispered softly.**

**Sherlock unzipped the black lace couture dress that Joan was wearing, pulled it off and tossed it aside. Then he unfastened her long hair from the clip that held it fast so that it fell to her shoulders. He loosened her bra so that her breasts sprang free as it dropped to the floor and put his fingers in the lace of her silk panties and ripped them off her, picked her up in his arms and carried her into the spare bedroom nearby and tossed her summarily on the bed. Then Sherlock removed his shirt, trousers and shorts, revealing his magnificent state of arousal.**

**"Tell me, Joan, do you want this? Tell me right now!"**

**"Yes . . . yes, Sherlock . . ."**

**Joan just whimpered his name and**** extended her hand to Sherlock and drew him down onto the bed onto her and they came together just like that. Further words were not needed as they found exquisite pleasure in the flesh of one another that night.**

**That was the prelude to events the evening that Andrew was killed in that coffee shop with Joan as she explained to him that they did not have a future. Sherlock got the call at about eight p.m. and immediately he was there at her side. Joan was completely traumatized by the experience and asked Then to take her home to her apartment. She could not speak when she realized that the poisoned coffee Andrew drank had been intended for her. The idea that she had become the lightning rod in this case pained her beyond measure. The fact that she had decided to break off with Andrew and was in fact in process of doing so when Andrew met his death only added to her pain at his death.**

**Sherlock wanted to take Joan into his arms at that moment and comfort her, but he sensed that he needed to allow Joan to grieve over Andrew. She and Andrew had in fact been lovers for a few months and friends beyond that. So Sherlock simply attended to her. He brought her food every day, made himself available to her to talk to. He also encouraged her to seek counsel from Dr. Candace Reed and she did that.**

**Dr. Reed was very concerned about Joan's state of mind in the wake of Andrew's death and listened carefully to the account of her own feelings after Andrew's death as a very distraught Joan sat before her in her office.**

**"I feel responsible for his death. If he had not known me, had not been close to me, he would be alive today."**

**"But you could not be responsible for the chain of events that led to his death."**

**"I only became involved with him for selfish reasons. I needed a man . . . to be with and that is why I became involved with him in the first place. I knew in my heart that it was Sherlock I really wanted. I feel so terrible."**

**"Joan, I must caution you not to link these events this way. Time and chance caused your and Andrew's lives to intersect in this most unfortunate manner. If he had not sought a physical relationship with you, it would not have happened. He knew that your work was dangerous and he continued to pursue the relationship. Now you and Sherlock owe it to yourselves and to the memory of Andrew that his life might not have been lost in vain."**

**"I feel like I belong to Sherlock in spite of everything. When we are together sexually, it is unlike anything I have ever experienced, Candace. I cannot hold back anything from him. I always believed that vaginal orgasm was a myth . . . till Sherlock. It is indescribable what happens to me. I am so sad over Andrew's death, but I want Sherlock. Am I a wicked heartless person to want Sherlock so fiercely in the face of all that has happened?"**

**"No, you should go to him and be with him, Joan. Be thankful that you have him. He is evidently yours, Joan. Claim him for yourself and let him comfort you."**

**Joan looked at Dr. Reed, understanding her counsel and broke down in tears.**

**"I do need him now more than ever, Candace. I just want him to hold me again. I feel so guilty that even in the wake of Andrew's death my body is still so alive for Sherlock."**

**"I am sure Sherlock will take care of that. It is obvious that you are both quite well-suited to each other. He will not let you suffer. He is your friend as well as your lover."**

**Joan and Sherlock deduced that the whole affair was an offshoot of the Elena March case, that Elena March's imprisonment had brought the wrath of the March criminal organization down on her, but Elena March was already in prison for life so there was little that could be done. And then Elena March was found dead in her prison cell. That ended it. But it did not end Joan's regret for e****ven attempting to be in love with Andrew.**

**When nearly two weeks had passed, Joan finally came to herself and told Sherlock what was in her heart.**

**"I realize that I will be committed to the work for the rest of my life. I cannot try to have a 'normal' life. I am a part of this world, your world."**

**"You do not have to embrace this work as I do, Watson. I realize that you must have your own space, your own life. I do not expect you to commit to the work as I."**

**"No, I am am going to commit myself to your work. I want to come back to the brownstone."**

**Sherlocks heart felt as if it would burst from his chest when Joan spoke as she did.**

**"It is not my work Watso****n. It is our work."**

**Sherlock was thrilled to think of having Joan be a day-to-day part of his life again, but he had not wanted her to do this because of Andrew's death. He wanted this choice to come from her own wish to resume their life as before. He did not know how to express his feelings on this in a way that would not seem selfish on his part so he simply did what she asked him to do. He made arrangements to bring her home.**

**Sherlock had quickly become habituated to his passionate sexual events with Joan before Andrew's death, but in the wake of that event he had held himself back from the advances he wanted to make as far as she was concerned, wanting to give her time to grieve over what had happened. As a result he found himself under the increased pressure of his need for Joan, wanting to be with her again. **

**The night before she moved back to the brownstone he did not sleep at all. Anticipating living in the same space with the woman he loved more than anyone in the world excited him as nothing else could have. He spent the better part of the evening helping Joan pack the last items and trying to quell his passionate need for her. Finally he gave up and turned to her. She was wearing old tattered jeans and a somewhat ragged tee shirt that did not hide the fact that she was braless; her hair was pulled up into a haphazard half bun. She wore no makeup and the smell of her sweat mingled with the faint essence of her perfume because of the work she was doing caused his nostrils to vibrate as he inhaled her scent. She was as beautiful as he could ever remember and all Sherlock could think of was how much he loved her, how much he wanted her and needed her.**

**"Watson, I must leave you now. I have to. I find myself seeing you only as the woman that I love more than anyone on this earth and . . . I find it quite nearly impossible to contain my . . . my ardor under these circumstances."**

**Joan stopped and looked at him with the most woebegone look in her eyes.**

**"I understand, Sherlock. We don't do 'keeping our hands off each other' well any more, do we?"**

**"No, we don't." **

**Sherlock leaned toward Joan as if to kiss her but Joan dropped her head so that their mouths did not touch, and yet when their noses nearly met, they each inhaled the intoxicating personal scent of the other and they were both so nearly overwhelmed that Sherlock nearly jumped out of his skin as his passions were so aroused that he hurried, practically ran to the door.**

**"Good ****night, Watson," he said as he went out of the door.**

**Joan sat down in tears. She needed and wanted him so.**

_**I need and want him and I know he wanted me. Why can't I just face the facts and be with him. Why do I feel disloyal to Andrew, who was just a boyfriend, nothing more? Sherlock needed my attention this evening. He tried to hide his need from me but he couldn't hide it. I saw it in his body and I saw it in his eyes. And look at me, I'm a mess, my hair, I'm sweaty and dirty and yet just now I know he wanted me. God, please help me to get past this feeling of guilt. Please.**_

**Sherlock went home to the brownstone and tried to tamp down his raging libido by busying himself with preparing her room for her return. He had purchased a Tempurpedic mattress for her bed and one of those fluffy white chenille bedspreads that he knew she loved as well as two sets of 600 count cotton satin sheets and pillowcases for her bed. In addition, he had had removed the dresser and nightstand that Kitty had used to the basement and found an interesting antique set in one of those furniture stores along Atlantic Avenue. There was a huge old mirror that he had found there as well. When he was finished arranging things for her, he made his own bed with fresh linen and straightened his room. Then he made himself tea and sat in nervous reflection and anticipation of her return, needing and longing for her.**

**Sherlock and Alfredo along with Luc, a big quiet fellow from Guadeloupe who sometimes did work for Sherlock, completed moving Joan back to the brownstone without too much commentary as Joan was still in a very melancholy mood. Actually Sherlock was concerned that Joan was acting precipitously in suddenly moving back the way that she did in the wake of Andrew's death, as much as he wanted her to be with him in the brownstone again. The few nights she had spent there with him prior to Andrew's death were not nearly enough for him. **

**When it was all done, Sherlock made a pot of Earl Grey tea and presented a cup to Joan who nodded and accepted the tea from his hand and sat down on the sofa with him in front of the fire. As she sat there, she finally lost the tight grip she had held on her emotions and began to cry. Silent tears just rolled down her cheeks and when she couldn't stop them, Sherlock took the cup of tea from her hand and set it aside on the coffee table. Then Joan began to sob and Sherlock took her into his arms upon his lap as her sobs became uncontrollable.**

**Luc had already left and Alfredo, seeing for the first time at close range the powerful emotions that were in place between Sherlock and Joan, quickly excused himself in the face of the interplay between his two friends.**

**"I . . . I just don't know, Sherlock. I can't believe that someone would kill someone they don't even know. What is wrong with people?"**

**"Some people are inherently evil, Joan. Don't expect anything but evil from evil people."**

**Joan climbed onto Sherlock's lap and clung to him like a little girl, still weeping.**

**"I am grieving but, I am so sorry. I need you, Sherlock . . . Baby, I'm aching so for you."**

**Joan's cry of need caused Sherlock to have to fight for self-control to keep from hungrily taking her right there at that moment, as his body responded to her on his lap, but he well knew he had to let Joan take the lead in this instance even though he gasped as his flesh came powerfully and completely to attention when he heard her cry out for him so pitifully.**

**"Forgive my pathetic flesh, but if you would allow me to attend to you, Joan," Sherlock whispered, "I will be most honored to give you whatever you need tonight."**

**"Yes, please take me to your bed, Sherlock," Joan said.**

**Sherlock picked Joan up in his arms and carried her into his bedroom, laid her carefully on his bed and then began to first tenderly kiss her breasts, then the especially sensitive place on her midriff that he had discovered, her belly, and finally to gently touch her all over with just his fingertips as he undressed her. Joan lay beside him on his bed running her fingers through Sherlock's auburn hair as his kisses became more and more passionate all over her body.**

**"I have no shame any more, Sherlock, none at all. I am in pathetic need of you," Joan said as she gave herself to Sherlock for his attention.**

**"Dear God . . . Joan, my sweetest Joan," Sherlock murmured as he held her and touched her tenderly as if she were a piece of fine china. "You should have asked for what you need. You know that I will gladly take care of you, luv. You are trembling so, my little one. I don't want you to suffer like this, luv."**

**"I know, Sherlock. I am so hot for you that I'm embarrassed. I have never wanted any man the way that I want you right this minute. All I can think of is the times we have been together and how you made me feel."**

**"Don't be ashamed, Joan. You are an adult woman and you need this right now. It is a fact of your humanity. Don't cry, luv. Just take what you need from me. I won't take from you tonight."**

**Sherlock stripped his own clothes off and lay down naked beside Joan, gently kissing her lips over and over as his hand traveled all over her breasts and down her body. But when his fingertips touched her smooth belly and then her thighs, Joan cried out in ecstasy, climbed onto Sherlock and they came together just like that.**

**"Joan . . . luv! I adore you!" Sherlock snorted loudly and gasped with each rocking movement, his handsome features contorted in ecstasy as he gripped Joan's hips so tightly that there would be black and blue marks later. **

**"Sherlock! I love you, Sherlock . . . love you! Oh, God, Sherlock!"**

**Sherlock finally drew Joan down onto his chest as their passions continued to escalate. They kissed mouth-to-mouth, drinking hungrily from each other's lips, clinging to each other and rocking together till suddenly Sherlock turned Joan onto her back.**

**"Joan! Joan!" he cried out, causing her to completely lose vision as he pushed hard into her, bringing her to a wild teeth-clattering climax. **

**"Sher . . . lock . . . Sher . . . !" Joan groaned between clenched teeth and then bit him hard on his clavicle in that moment.**

**"God! Dear God!" Sherlock cried out in an agony of pleasure in response as he squeezed Joan hard on her hips as he felt himself on the brink of his own release. "Forgive me, Joan! Please for . . . give . . . me!"**

**Joan was fluttering and snuffling in his arms, in such a state of ecstasy that she could hardly utter his name as, all the while Sherlock was on her, grunting and snorting over and over, his body wracked with spasm after spasm as all the stars of the universe seemed to explode in his brain.**

**"Sherlock . . . my Sherlock," Joan finally murmured softly as the acme suddenly relinquished its grip on her and she floated in the complete peace of surrender in his arms. "Yes, hold me, Sherlock. Please hold me tight, baby." **

**"Joanie . . . Joanie . . . my lovely honeybee!" Sherlock moaned as he felt her complete surrender to him. "My God, woman! Oh, my God!"**

**Sherlock held Joan, kissing her all over her face and caressing her tenderly as they eased down from the intense moments they had just experienced.**

**"I'm so sorry for biting you," Joan whispered, touching and then kissing and sucking the spot on his clavicle where she had drawn blood.**

**"You can bite me anytime, luv. I've needed you so," he said, choking back a sob. **

**Sherlock wakened the morning after Joan returned to the brownstone with Joan lying on his chest, her long hair strewn over him and he sensed that they had broken down the last barrier that had been between them. Sherlock felt his flesh shiver as he recalled the night before when Joan had laid all her feelings bare and climbed onto his lap and cried like her heart was broken.**

**The moments when they came together sexually were unlike those he had experienced with any other woman. Joan had wanted him and she had not held herself back from Sherlock. More than anything else she trusted Sherlock. She knew he would never act selfishly where she was concerned. The fact that he had refrained from any sexual overtures during those first two years that they had shared the brownstone gave Joan a sense of security where he was concerned, so that when she turned to him now for sexual comfort, she did so knowing that he would not pressure her or take advantage of her in any way. She knew that he would never take from her what she did not freely give him. And she wanted to give it all to him.**

**And then Sherlock found in Joan what he had never found with any other woman in all his vast sexual experience. When the moment of her release came, the orgasm had come from so deep inside her that she had sobbed and cried and bitten Sherlock and scratched deep welts on his back. But then following that, there was that moment when Joan surrendered herself completely to him and Sherlock felt it and in that moment he was so overwhelmed by it that he gave way to tears kissing her all over her face and her breasts, telling her how much he loved her. Silent tears began to stream down Sherlock's cheeks as he was consumed with memories of the night before causing Joan to stir in his arms.**

**"Sherlock . . .?" Joan murmured as she began to waken.**

**"Yes, luv. I'm here. I will always be here for you."**

**"I'm ready for you too now, Sherlock. Use me for your pleasure."**

**Sherlock smoothed her hair and drew her even closer. After the hiatus of several weeks without their having sexual contact, he was in dire need of more. He was excited anew as he wakened with her in his bed and he wanted her again. Joan sensed his need and stretched seductively, her initial shyness vanishing as she welcomed him once more, drawing the covers back so that she could look at him. He was flushed all over now, his pupils so dilated that they were just thin blue-green rings surrounding his darkened irises.**

**Sherlock drew her onto him and then he was gone, his passion for Joan overriding every other emotion as she climbed onto him as the glimmers of morning sunshine came through his window. They both cried out helplessly as their bodies joined again in the perfect sexual union that they had finally discovered. **

**They eventually pulled themselves from the bed and Joan went to shower while Sherlock went to make coffee for them. She dressed in soft black cotton slacks and a long-sleeved black tee shirt pulled over her bare breasts and went to find Sherlock in their kitchen. **

**"Morning, luv," Sherlock smiled tenderly at Joan.**

**Joan went to get cups and plates and arrange the table for their breakfast. She looked up at Sherlock and blushed slightly as he came close to her and kissed her on her forehead.**

**"It was good, wasn't it?"**

**"Yes, Sherlock, it was good. It is good always with you."**

**"When we are together, it is different from anyone else, Joan. You give . . . you give me everything, in that moment when you surrender."**

**"You give me something no other man has given me, Sherlock. That moment . . . I have never experienced that kind of sensation deep inside me. It involved my whole body. I never thought such an orgasm was a reality . . . till you took me there, Sherlock. And then . . . what came after . . . that moment."**

**Joan looked up into Sherlock's blue-green eyes as he kissed her tenderly all over her face.**

**"Capitulation, luv, your capitulation . . . and I have never been with a woman who was able to completely surrender like that. Even though there is much research on this subject, I thought that it was somehow a myth as well because I had never experienced it from anyone. Irene, or Moriarity, knew nothing of the beauty of capitulation. I doubt that she ever gave in completely to any man."**

**"I couldn't help it when it happened, Sherlock. I have never experienced this with anyone else. Perhaps it is because I trust you so completely. I trust you with all that I am. You should know that I love you and when you are making love to me something different happens deep inside me. You make me lose my mind, baby."**

**Sherlock caught Joan up against him and hugged her tight. She was trembling against him.**

**"Oh God, woman! I do love you more than anyone or anything in the world. At that moment when I was in the deepest part of you, I felt such powerful spasms around my own flesh that I saw stars. I felt it the moment you began to quiver inside. It was the most beautiful sensation, luv. It was like an electric current running up and down my spine making my testicles swell till they felt as if they were going to burst."**

**"Oh, my darling Sherlock, my darling Sherlock," Joan murmured.**

**Sherlock bent to find her open mouth with his own and they kissed passionately, standing there in the kitchen, as Joan's hands found their way under his soft tee shirt to caress his back and shoulders.**

**Joan melted like putty in his hands as Sherlock held her in his embrace and the sensation captured him completely.**

**"Sherlock, I love you. I love you and I trust you and . . . and . . ."**

**"Let's drink our coffee before it goes cold, luv. I will be unable to restrain myself in a moment."**

**Sherlock led Joan to the table and they sat down side by side and drank their coffee. Sherlock had made toast and they spread the crisp slices with butter and raspberry jam and fed each other.**

**Sherlock leaned over and kissed Joan on her cheek and then again on her neck on the spot just below her ear that he had discovered and she literally dissolved against him.**

**"Ooh, Sherlock . . ." Joan murmured as Sherlock continued to feed her and to play with her, kissing her and sucking her tiny earlobe. "Sherlock, baby . . . you know I can't resist you when you do that."**

**Sherlock drew Joan over onto his lap so that he could continue to kiss her upon her neck and then pulling up her tee shirt, burrowed his face there to find the softness of her breasts, grateful to discover that she was wearing no bra.**

**"Thank you for leaving off that infernal contraption. I need to suckle this morning, babe."**

**"Sherlock . . . um . . . yes, baby," Joan sighed and moaned softly, reaching to loosen his jeans and claim him. He was hers and she knew it. "I want you, Sherlock. I want you so."**

**"Oh, God, Joan! Yes, woman!"**

**Joan was flushing, her whole body hot with desire, preparing to take Sherlock again as he kissed each of her soft breasts in turn while his nimble fingers loosened her slacks and pulled them down and off and tossed them aside.**

**"Ooh, Sherlock, help me, baby. Help me, ooh!"**

**Sherlock picked Joan up in his arms and started to carry her down the stairs to his bedroom, but halfway there they began to kiss so passionately that they could not go farther as Sherlock's parts found congruence with Joan's parts and they came together as they both cried out loud. Joan, wrapping her legs around his hips as the joining between them became perfect. They could not get off the stairs as they moved in rhythm and came quickly to climax together right there, grunting and gasping together, spilling the essences of their lovemaking there on the steps.**

**"Oh, Sherlock, we are making quite a mess here on the stairs, aren't we?"**

**"It's beautiful, the mess we make. I love it and I will clean it up."**

**Joan and Sherlock kissed again and again on the stairs, overwhelmed with their feelings.**

**"Sherlock, I don't want to stop now. I'm still so hot for you."**

**"We're going to have to spend the rest of the day in bed, luv. And I dare say that will not be nearly enough."**

**Sherlock picked Joan up in his arms and carried her off to bed and they spent all the rest of the day making love to each other and sleeping and then waking to make love again and then again. **

**"I have never felt for anyone what I feel for you, my dearest Joan. You truly are the one I love more than anyone else in the world. Do you know that?"**

**"Yes, baby . . . and I love you too. I always have," Joan whispered as her own tears spilled from her eyes.**

**"Welcome home, luv," Sherlock whispered as he tenderly kissed the tears away from her cheeks and drew the warm covers up over them as they fell asleep in each other's arms.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Pull of His Gravity Chapter 2**

**By phaedraphelan**

**Word count: 9,511**

Summary: Sherlock and Joan become closer than they would hav imagined as their work and their personal lives blend together. This is about them, a murder mystery, and a great deal of Joanlock. Please review.

Disclaimer: "Elementary" is the artistic property of CBS and no infringement is intended.

**As night fell, Joan lay completely conquered in Sherlock's bed. She had never experienced a man involving her physically and emotionally so completely as Sherlock. Her whole body was tingling and vibrating from Sherlock's attention as they lay in each other's arms_._ He had so stimulated her that, in spite of her exhaustion she still wanted him. She was so excited that her body could not shut down its passionate response to him, her parts so tumescent that she could not think of resisting any of his advances. She lay there in his bed, unable to stop clinging to him, whispering his name, offering herself to him to use her to his heart's desire, Sherlock rested his head upon her belly, at first just caressing her and then gently nipping her all over her midsection with his teeth as all the while she moaned his name softly over and over.**

**"Sherlock . . . Ooh, Sherlock, my baby! I have given you all. You are my only one . . . my sweetheart." **

**"Dearest Joan, my dearest Joan. I can't get enough of you," Sherlock murmured as Joan ran her fingers through his hair. "Tell me to stop, luv, because I can't stop myself. I love you so. I am overwhelmed by my feelings."**

**"Don't stop, baby. Please just let me have you again. I can't get enough of you, Sherlock."**

**Sherlock mounted her and he slid deep inside Joan again and she cried out and shook and vibrated helplessly under him as her flesh clasped his tightly and then in just a few minutes Joan went into the spasms that they both knew so well now. Sherlock was rocking gently upon Joan as they both moaned softly together. Then his passionate thrusts accelerated and he groaned from the very depths of his soul as he used Joan so deeply that he grunted out loud with each thrust.**

**"I'm blind, luv. I can't see a thing. Oh, God! Dear God! I don't want to hurt you, but I'm gone!"**

**"Ooh, Sherlock, yes! Yes! Oh, baby, yes!" Joan wailed his name as her orgasm surged, enveloping her, her parts clenching in spasm after spasm that rippled through her whole body around Sherlock deep inside her. "These . . . spasms . . . won't stop, Sherlock!"**

**And then Sherlock began to ejaculate again, snorting and grunting passionately, overcome as he spilled into Joan, giving her what she craved so desperately from him and from him only.**

**"Jesus, Joan! Oh, Jesus!" Sherlock cried out as the bright flashes of the climax exploded in his brain.**

**"I love it when that happens . . . every time it happens, Sherlock. I crave that moment now. I crave it so much."**

**"Then you . . . you shall have it. You shall have whatever it is in my power to give you, luv."**

**Sherlock kissed Joan tenderly now as his keen mind processed what she had just told him and he began to realize how little he really knew about the needs and responses of this woman that had shared his life for more than two years and had now become involved with him in an intimacy that he could not have imagined possible with anyone. He wondered within himself if Joan was desiring to carry a baby for him. The thought crossed his mind often when they were sexually involved, but he and Joan had not broached that subject. It seemed that now that time had arrived. Suddenly he wanted to fulfill every one of her womanly desires.**

**"Do you think that you want to carry, Joan? Would you ever want a baby with me?"**

**"Why?"**

**"Because if you do, I will give you a baby. I will give you whatever you want."**

**"I love you so much, Sherlock . . . so much, but I'm not prepared to . . . even think about that. I know that we are not, as you would say, in a traditional relationship. This is all completely new to me . . . how I am feeling, what I am experiencing." Joan paused for a long moment before she spoke again. "Thank you for asking me, Sherlock. I hope that you will let me know if you develop the urge to be a father. Have you ever imagined me pregnant?"**

**"Yes . . . from when we first met. I would have these dreams about you and you would be quite pregnant, luv. I never dreamed that I had made any other woman pregnant. If ever . . . it happens, I know that I would have no negative feelings about it."**

**Sherlock kissed Joan tenderly over and over as they lay in each other's arms and finally drifted off to sleep again.**

**Joan wakened after midnight in Sherlock's bed. She was ravenous and the smell of bacon frying in the kitchen was calling her name. She got up somewhat painfully. (She had never been used so thoroughly by any man in her life.) She found Sherlock's robe and wrapped it around herself and found her way downstairs to the kitchen where Sherlock stood in his boxers making scrambled eggs.**

**"Oh, there you are, luv. I was going to bring you a late night's breakfast in bed," Sherlock said softly. "I fear we got carried away, didn't we?"**

**"My body feels like a truck ran over me, baby."**

**"Please forgive me for my exuberance. I was unable to restrain help myself."**

**"We couldn't stop ourselves, could we?" Joan said softly as she sought the comfort of his arms.**

**Sherlock shook his head and bent to kiss her lips gently.**

**"I know. I cannot blame you. I kept begging you for . . . for more. Your lips are puffy as well. I never saw your lips swollen when you were entertaining your various female visitors."**

**"I never shared the kind of kisses we have been experiencing, Joan. I have never been as intimate with anyone as with you. Even . . . Irene . . . was not . . . well, let's just say that I never had a case of swollen lips till you . . . you and I began to explore each other's mouths. I canna get enough of you, lassie." **

**"We were crazy to not have seen what was between us, weren't we?"**

**"I must tell you, Joan, that what we are sharing together is not just about your lovely hind parts. It is true that I have never been with a woman with whom I experienced what we have, but it isn't just about the sexual connection. It is a strange combination of the flesh and what I can only describe as the soul when we have that moment when I spill into you and you cry out my name and I cry out in ecstasy. I never had elevated coitus to where it has become between you and me till we began to come together. I-I must tell you that I truly love you, all of you . . . your lovely hind parts and your b-beautiful breasts and hair, but I love your mind, the way it syncs with mine, the sound of your voice when I am stressed, the touch of your fingers in my hair when I am in your arms, the sight of you in exstase . . ."**

**Joan's eyes filled with tears as she stared into Sherlock's eyes.**

**Sherlock nodded and smiled tenderly at her and gently touched her swollen mouth with his fingertips before kissing her again ever so lightly.**

**"Let's give ourselves some nourishment and then I will draw a warm bath for us so we can relieve the soreness we are both feeling and then we can get some sleep."**

**"I couldn't be more satisfied than I am right now," Joan said, blushing even more deeply. "I don't think I ever knew how satisfied I could be till now with you, Sherlock. You really know how to make a girl feel good."**

**"You are a woman, not a girl, luv," Sherlock said as a matter of fact, "the most completely sensual woman I have ever known."**

**Sherlock had blushed uncharacteristically hearing Joan's words of approval of his sexual prowess. He knew that he had always had the ability to please the women he had been with, but at the same time he realized that the closeness that he and Joan were now experiencing was unlike anything he had ever known. With other women in his vast experience he had usually been satisfied with one or two sexual experiences and then he was done, no longer craving or even curious. Even Irene only kept his interest because she denried him full expression most of the time. But with Joan everything was different . . . an ongoing sexual mystery was unfolding before his eyes with no end in sight, a mystery of moments of marvelous discovery of one another. They had been so completely in sync mentally and now, with the powerful sexual component overlaying everything else, they had begun to forge something stronger than either of them had imagined possible.**

**"You're blushing, Sherlock," Joan said at the unusual sight of his cheeks reddening.**

**Sherlock nodded and his blue-green eyes filled with tears. That was when Joan felt her power over him for the first time. In those moments since she surrendered so completely to him she had wondered if she was losing herself in him in that act of capitulation, that act of completely letting go. That had always been her fear in the face of Sherlock's flamboyant personality. Now she suddenly realized that she had lost nothing at all, that she had instead gained a communion of mind and body with him that she had never imagined to be possible with any man. As she looked into his eyes there was no doubt in her mind. And when he cried out her name when in the paroxysms of ecstasy, Joan knew that Sherlock was truly her man.**

**They finished their midnight supper and then got into the tub of hot soapy water together. They washed each other's bodies and then lay there, their passions totally exhausted, and then finally as the water went tepid, they got out of the tub, dried themselves and practically fell into the nearest bed, Joan's, together and fell sound asleep between the smooth luxe pastel sheets.**

**The next morning Joan wakened slumbering on Sherlock's chest in her bed and reached for the bottle of water on her night table.**

**"Have a sip of water to freshen your mouth because I want to really kiss you this morning."**

**Sherlock took a swig from the water and sighed passionately.**

**Joan nestled into Sherlock and patted his firm belly and touched the rest of him as she offered her open mouth to him.**

**"God, Joan, I'm in love with you. I am completely in love with you." **

**"I think my man needs attention this morning," she whispered into his ear as she gently nibbled his earlobe. "I'm here for you . . . right now."**

**Sherlock's libido had made itself powerfully manifest again and just knowing that Joan would not reject him in his moment of need filled and warmed his heart as she began to caress him.**

**Sherlock reached for Joan and drew her onto him and they began to kiss and kiss and that was as far as they got before they came together in intercourse. It was tender and passionate between them as Sherlock carefully arranged himself over Joan and claimed her again, telling her over and over how much loved her, how beautiful she was. Joan melted under him, her body vibrating and trembling as she so often did when he made love to her.**

**"Ooh, Sher . . . lock . . . Please help me, baby. Please!"**

**"I'm here, luv. I will always . . . be . . . here for you. I will always help you. Oh, God! Yes, Joan!" Sherlock cried out as his life force spurted from him.**

**"Sherlock, baby! Ooh! Yes! Yes!" Joan whimpered and then wailed softly as powerful spasms seized her in the deepest part of her again. **

**Both of their bodies had gone rigid at the same moment and they saw stars together as the release surged over and through both of them as they were caught up in the supreme moment of ecstasy.**

**When the spasm eased its grip on them, ****Sherlock gently reversed their positions so that Joan was on top of him and not bearing the weight of his body as they let themselves slide down into the afterglow. And Joan clung to him, her body melding completely with his in the moment of her surrender to him.**

**That morning they stayed in bed and slept and slept and then in the afternoon Sherlock wakened Joan. By then he was completely energized and ready for activity.**

**"I think that we should go out tonight . . . for dinner at someplace special. Will you go out with me, luv? How about Peter Luger's?"**

**"Sure, I am ravenous, and I feel like a great steak."**

**They dressed in a leisurely fashion, stopping for extended periods of touching and kissing, and finally emerged to face the world outside the brownstone together. It was late spring with a brisk chill in the New York air. Sherlock took Joan's hand and led her down the steps to the street. There was no need to speak at this moment. They had said everything that needed to be said. They just wanted to enjoy the knowledge they now had of each other. They were so tuned in with each other now. Joan enjoyed it when Sherlock looked at her and felt no need to hide the desire in his eyes any longer. And she did not hide the desire in her eyes from him, but openly flirted with him, tossing her hair and tantalizing him shamelessly. She belonged to him, but Sherlock belonged to her . . . totally, completely, without reservation . . . for the first time in his life he knew that he belonged to a woman. When Joan rested her hand on his thigh and squeezed it in that way she did, his knee jerked as he was excited beyond his imagination. He belonged to her as surely as if she had tied a rope around his neck to lead him about and he didn't care who knew it.**

**They hailed a taxi and headed to Peter Luger's for dinner. Sherlock put his hand in its now familiar soft place between her knees and left it there.**

**"You like to do that, don't you, Sherlock?"**

**Sherlock just smiled down at her, winked, and bent down to steal a deep sensual kiss.**

**They arrived at the restaurant all too quickly because the passions were running so high between them, but then their need for food overrode their passions and they settled down to enjoy the fine meal, the aged prime steaks which some viewed as the best in the city.**

**Sherlock loved to watch Joan eat almost as much as he loved to watch her sleep. And now they took turns feeding each other, something they did naturally without thinking till fin****ally they were replete, ready to go home. But they decided to walk along the waterfront below Peter Luger's in the evening darkness where they could see the bright lights of Manhattan as they walked hand in hand.**

**Sherlock drew Joan close and up against his body as they stopped for a moment to embrace in the soft darkness of the somewhat desolate area.**

**Joan shivered slightly in Sherlock's arms and his embrace tightened around her.**

**"I feel uncomfortable here, Sherlock. Can we walk back toward the restaurant?"**

**Sherlock always trusted Joan's instincts and now, when the direction of the wind changed and a smell not unfamiliar drifted by his sensitive nose, he instinctively reached for his cell phone.**

**"Someone died here. I'm calling Gregson."**

**Now Joan's nose caught the same dreadful scent and she walked in that direction instead of away from it.**

**Behind several garbage cans the stench became even stronger and Sherlock saw the body of a woman under a pile of trash. She was nude except for stockings on her legs that were doubled under her. Her hair waist length hair was in braids, but one of the braids had been cut off.**

**"Come, Watson. We need to step away and wait for the CSI Team to get here."**

**The young woman had been choked to death and there were no clues. The crime scene was taped off and Sherlock and Joan stood staring at it. Sherlock was watching the CSI take several photos as a point of reference."**

**"You two can go on home. I don't guess you were planning to have your evening out end this way. You can start on this tomorrow."**

**Sherlock nodded to Gregson and took Joan's hand and walked her away from the crime scene.**

**Suddenly both their minds were racing, processing what they had just seen. As they sat in the taxi headed back to the brownstone, they were thinking of all the scenarios that could have led to the murder they had discovered. ****When they arrived home, both immediately began to search the missing persons lists for someone matching the description of the victim. **

**"The victim was Jewish, Sherlock, probably Orthodox . . . the seamed stockings, the waist length braided hair. An unmarried Jewish girl. Why would anyone kill her?" Joan ****summarized.**

**"It will be interesting to know whether she is intact, Watson. We shall be interested in the autopsy report."**

**"I am so glad that I have you to protect me, Sherlock. Even last year when I was kidnapped, I knew that you would find me, that you would protect me. I need you, Sherlock."**

**Sherlock stopped and stared at Joan, realizing the intensity with which she had spoken. **

**"You are my priority, Joan."**

**"Come and have tea before bed," Joan said, taking him by the hand. "We can work this case tomorrow."**

**They sat down together. Sherlock had made a fire and he drew Joan close as they sat in quiet reflection before it. The day had been a full one with them making love to one another till they were exhausted, topped off with a fancy restaurant date. Sherlock lay on Joan's lap after they had finished their tea.**

**Finally Sherlock drew Joan down so that he could kiss her mouth with his as he slipped his hands under her top so that he could squeeze her soft breasts and let his thumbs caress her dainty nipples. Then he adjusted their position as he took control of the situation, embracing her, letting his hands wander up and down her body as their passions escalated.**

**"Oh, God, Joan . . . Joan, please take care of me again."**

**"Yes, Sherlock, yes!"**

**They were suddenly fully engaged, kissing passionately and sliding down onto the floor in front of the sofa, Sherlock oblivious to the hard floor as he drew Joan on top of him, as they anxiously pulled each other's clothes open so that they could access the parts of each other that they craved to touch. Sherlock gripped Joan's hips tightly and cried out for joy as her flesh found congruence with his and took him deep inside her.**

**"Oh, God, Joan! Joan!" he cried out loud as he began to gently rock Joan in the rhythm of the ages as she moaned and whimpered in his arms, gasping his name each time she felt his thrusts carry her all the way through the portals of the most exquisite pleasure she had ever known.**

**"Sherlock . . . Sherlock, baby," Joan bit Sherlock's shoulder hard in a fit of blinding passion at the apex.**

**"Yes! Yes! Hurt me! God, yes!" Sherlock's eyes rolled back into his head and he cried out in ecstasy as his release came at that moment and he emptied himself into her as she melted in surrender to him.**

**They lay panting together on the floor, Sherlock smoothing her hair and whispering his words of love over and over as his body and Joan's lay joined in total communion. Finally they got up and managed to go to Sherlock's bed where they fell immediately into a deep restorative sleep.**

**Joan wakened in the early morning hours to an empty bed, wrapped herself in her robe and went to find Sherlock. He was sitting in front of his computer in deep contemplation. She recognized that he was thinking on the case. There were still the dark circles under his eyes.**

**"You have something in mind, don't you?"**

**"Yes, the young victim was a member of the Hasidic Jewish community. They are essentially a closed community, not mixing or intermarrying with non-Jews, ergo the seamed stockings and the waist length braids. How would interaction with a Gentile man go down in such a community?"**

**"Not good, I am sure. That would not go down well. The family would yield obvious suspects."**

**"Tomorrow we will continue our investigation, luv. I didn't want you to break your rest, but I had to give this case some thought. Would you come back to bed with me?"**

**Joan nodded, but when she pulled back Sherlock's robe, she saw the red marks where her own teeth had bitten him earlier.**

**"I'm sorry that I hurt you, baby, I don't mean . . ."**

**"I love you to hurt me. Do you have any idea how it affects me when you inflict pain, luv? I'm quite imperfect, you know. I can't help it if I . . . I need . . . crave pain sometimes."**

**"Sherlock," Joan stated as a matter of fact. "I don't know what to say. I only know that I want to please you."**

_**Joan had felt his explosive release inside her at the moment she bit him and she had always known that pain in a sexual context would not be a repugnant thing to Sherlock. She knew very well that whereas Sherlock was usually masterful and even unrestrained in his taking her and using her, later Sherlock would hold Joan so carefully, so tenderly, kissing her all over as he sobbed his love, his gratitude to her, opening his heart completely to her.**_

_**Joan stood and reflected on where she had come in her relationship with Sherlock and recalled his words as he had lain with her in bed.**_

_**"I love you . . . more than I have ever loved, Joan. The words come freely now, because they are so true. You know me so well, what I need. I should feel shame that I enjoy it when you inflict pain on me sometimes, luv, but I don't. Sometimes I crave pain in the worst way. Why do you think I went to those whores and paid them to beat me? I am quite damaged. Can you really love a man as damaged as I? There is something wrong with a man who needs pain."**_

_**"Because I do. I love you back . . . without reservation, with no limits. I love your mind and I love your body. When you are on me, I just begin to vibrate all over. I will bring you whatever pleasure you crave if you love me the same way. And Sherlock, I will not resent it if you even smack my behind when you feel inclined."**_

_**"Would you also indulge my desire to pinch your lovely nates on occasion? I am tempted relentlessly at the sight of your hind parts, luv."**_

_**Sherlock wrapped his arms around Joan and squeezed her hips as they gazed into each other's eyes.**_

_**"I think I should leave you to your work. I think I am distracting you."**_

_**"Distraction? Yes, but a source of the utmost pleasure."**_

_**Sherlock smacked Joan's bottom as she left him, but then he had to follow her back to bed, unable to resist the powerful urges in his flesh. He reached for Joan's hand and drew her back to him.**_

_**"Joan! Joan! I can't stop . . . I can't make it to our bed. Forgive me my extremely carnal nature!"**_

_**"Sherlock . . . baby . . . I for . . . give . . . Ooh, Ooh!"**_

_**He pushed Joan up against the wall of the hallway, rotating his excited pelvis upon hers as he kissed her again and again, stripping her clothes out of his way and tossing them aside as they slid to the floor there and came together again in a rhythmic tangle of arms and legs on the floor with Sherlock gripping Joan's hips, holding her on top of him in a perfect connection till they came to climax.**_

_**Later Joan had smoothed Sherlock's hair back from his damp forehead kissing him all the while. She loved lying with him in the afterglow, smelling the scent of his skin, his hair, his sweat, his semen in those moments before she took a shower when the scent of the efflux of sex was all over both of them. His scent was that of a wild man when he was aroused and Joan loved to lie in his scent, that strange heady mixture of sandalwood, violin rosin and pure man that was Sherlock. She had never felt completely conquered by a man till Sherlock made love to her and she loved that feeling, that feeling of throwing all caution to the wind, that feeling of being completely wanton in her need for him, even as he was conquered by his need for her.**_

**In the morning Sherlock wakened with Joan in his bed in his arms. Tears flooded his eyes as he recalled the night that they had shared together. He had never felt this close to anyone in his life as he felt at that moment when he opened himself completely to Joan and she had given him what he craved and needed so. Sherlock's hands roved up and down Joan's back and he hugged her tightly.**

**"Sherlock, you are so strong . . .umm. . . umm," Joan sighed sleepily as she wakened in the warmth of his embrace.**

**"I am a very flawed human, Joan, and you understand and accept me with all my flaws, and I love you because of that."**

**They stared at each other in the morning light and there was absolutely nothing hidden from the other. Their souls were naked and bare to one another now.**

**Joan touched his finely sculptured lips with her fingertips and pressed down, opening up his mouth completely so that the soft wetness of the inside of his mouth moistened all of her fingers as she gently massaged his gums and his tongue and she even found the pair of mandibular tori in the floor of his mouth and massaged their soft firmness with her index finger in a manner that was so erotic that Sherlock began to salivate copiously.**

**"I love your mouth. This is what I always wanted to do, Sherlock." **

**"Aargh . . . Aargh!" Sherlock's eyes finally rolled back into his head and his body jerked helplessly as Joan pleasured him this way and then removed her hand from his mouth and carefully sucked the taste of him from her own fingers before she kissed him so passionately that he was completely undone, shaking and trembling in ecstasy. "Joan . . . Joan," he gasped.**

**"I love you, Sherlock."**

**Sherlock threw back the sheet so that they both lay completely naked as they began to engage in their morning session of pillow talk.**

**"I believe that I have loved you since that first day when you came here to me. Could you possibly have begun to love me then?"**

**Joan smiled at him and blushed, not because she was naked, but because he reached the depths of her heart with his question.**

**"I must say that I found myself supremely drawn to you. That is all I will say at this point."**

**Sherlock grinned with masculine pride as his flesh came to full attention in her sight.**

**"Oh, God, Sherlock!" Joan exclaimed, stunned at the sight of his maleness asserting itself so powerfully again.**

**"But, tell me. Did you always want this?" he said, gesturing toward his evident state.**

**"Yes," Joan answered simply before continuing. "You know that I have seen countless male specimens, Sherlock, both intact as well as circumcised. I am not a blushing virgin. And I had imagined you many times."**

**"And do you have a preference, a requirement?"**

**"Only that it belong to the man I love with all that I am. But I somehow think that the fact that you are intact is an unanticipated bonus."**

**"But you excite me as no other woman has ever excited me. My own flesh often shocks even me in our moments together . . . like when you put your hand in my mouth a few moments ago . . . something no other woman has done to me."**

**"You make me lose all restraint when I see you this way. I want nothing more than to be with you, to be whatever you want, to give you whatever you want, to fulfill all my fantasies."**

**Now it was Sherlock's turn to blush as Joan regarded him in the bright morning light from the window.**

**Joan lay back upon the pillows, her arms welcoming Sherlock now as she watched him gasp helplessly at the sight of her this way. **

**"God! You have no idea how much I am excited by the sight of you like this," he told her. "You are so beautiful, your beautiful** _**yoni, **_**your lovely . . **." **he whispered into her ear the common word that sounded almost like poetry in his clipped British accent.**

**If Joan doubted his words, there was no further question when he fell upon her and began to kiss her over and over upon her neck and breasts and then her torso and belly.**

**"Oh, Sherlock!" Joan moaned as Sherlock continued to pleasure her. "Sherlock . . . Ooh . . . Ooh!"**

**Sherlock was consumed with his passion now as Joan cried out, her hands clutching his chestnut locks, as he held her fast. **

**Finally Sherlock lifted his head and the languid stare in his blue-green eyes revealed the depth of his ecstasy with her, as their open mouths were completely engaged again.**

**"Oh, God, my Joan! I love you so! Look at me! I am completely engorged. I beg you to attend to me. Please, Joan. I feel as if my testicles will burst because they are so full for you."**

**Joan held him fast as he pushed himself inside her in one powerful thrust and at that moment their bodies seemed to melt into one another as the cadence of coitus seized them once more.**

**"Is it good for you, woman? Is this good for you? Is this what you want?""**

**"Yes! Yes, Sherlock! Oh, yes! Yes! Do not spare me. Bang me into this bed!"**

**And that is what he did in a powerful flurry of rhythmic thrusts that pounded into the depths of her as Joan dug her nails into his forearms and then raked his back from his shoulders down to his muscular hips as her whole body contracted powerfully with each thrust as he used her and all the while she gripped both his hips, pulling him as deeply as possible, digging her nails in deep in her passion, wailing his name as ecstasy seized her at the same moment when Sherlock's release came in a blinding flash of light.**

**"Oh, God! God!" Sherlock cried out in an ecstatic orgasm, clenching his teeth, as he gave his seed to Joan, his eyes rolling back into his head as the spasms shook him to his foundations. **

**"Sherlock, baby, I am yours . . . completely." Joan swooned in surrender in his embrace, moaning his name. "Ooh, Sherlock . . . yes . . .yes," she was suddenly soft and tender with Sherlock, melting in her moment of capitulation. **

**Sherlock sobbed at the sound of her calling his name in that moment.**

**"Oh, my darling Joan . . . I do love you so," Sherlock cried as his tears flowed, wetting Joan's breasts as he lay in her embrace sucking her breasts as spasms continued to intermittently ripple both of through them.**

**They lay finally exhausted together, cooing softly to each other in their bed holding each other and realizing where they had come in their relationship together. They did not fall asleep immediately, but they just lay together for the next hour or so, hardly speaking, not needing to speak, needing only to look into each other's eyes as the deepest emotions flowed back and forth between them.**

**"My dearest Joan . . . my dearest Joan," Sherlock whispered into her ear as he kissed and nibbled her tiny earlobe.**

**"Sherlock . . . Yes . . . Oh, yes. Remember what I said to you . . . about the pull of your gravity? I cannot deny it. When you said we were bound, you were right. I knew that you were right when you said that. I am so bound to you."**

**"I adore you, Joan."**

**They finally got up from their bed and went into the bathroom to shower together and then tried to get dressed. They were constantly touching each other now in spite of themselves and trying to control themselves, their passions so stimulated that they were completely distracted by each other, stopping to rub up against each other and kiss and pat on each other. This was new to Sherlock, who had always shied away from all but the most necessary physical contact, but now craved it with Joan, constantly needing to touch her as if to reassure himself that she was his woman, that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.**

**Work took their much of their attention and energy for the next few days as they investigated the case of the young Hasidic Jewish girl who had been found strangled on the bank of the East River near Peter Luger's. It turned out that she was the daughter of a rabbi in Williamsburg. The fact that she had not been reported missing raised a red flag to Sherlock. **

**"How could a young virgin woman from a closed society like the Hasidim go missing and not be reported?" Sherlock asked as he paced the floor of the brownstone.**

**"Sherlock, did the autopsy confirm her to be a virgin?"**

**"She was not intact, but there was no evidence of rape and it was still assumed that that was the case. The Hasidim are known to eschew all premarital sex and she was from one of the most well known families in Williamsburg."**

**"But, Sherlock, remember that one of her long braids had been cut. The long hair is a symbol of the virginity of young Hasidic women. I learned this from the Jews in Queens that lived in our neighborhood."**

**"We need to speak with persons in her neighborhood and to her family."**

**Sherlock and Joan went to visit the family of the girl in their coop apartment in Williamsburg. **

**"Sir, we are consultants with the NYPD and we are working with them to solve the murder of your daughter Hadassah."**

**"We are greatly saddened, Mr. Holmes, but the mystery will never be solved by your people. We have our own methods, our own council, to handle matters such as this."**

**Jacob Steiner turned to his teenage son standing observing the conversation and dismissed him with a stern glance which Sherlock noticed.**

**"She didn't believe in our ways any longer," the young man blurted out.**

**"You are?" Sherlock asked.**

**"I am Levy Steiner, Hadassah's twin brother. She was leaving our faith."**

**"That is enough, Levy. Leave this room now!" His father demanded sternly.**

**"Please don't shout at the boy, Mrs. Steiner begged. She had been silent till this point.**

**"Mrs. Steiner, may I have a glass of water?" Joan asked in an attempt to have a few private words with her.**

**"Certainly, come with me." **

**She led Joan down a hallway to the well-appointed kitchen and they passed a picture of Hadassah on the way, a dark-haired beauty with perfectly symmetrical features.**

**"Your daughter was beautiful. You have our deepest sympathy at your loss."**

**"My heart is broken. She was a special child. But she broke the rules and brought shame on our family by becoming involved with a _goy_. I know she couldn't help it, but there was no way it could end up well."**

**"Do you know the young man she became involved with?"**

**"She never told me his name, but I knew she was seeing a young man. I saw the change in her. She suddenly was not a child any more. A mother knows when that change takes place. And then I found this note in her things after she was found murdered."**

**Gertrude Steiner drew an envelope from her bosom and handed it to Joan. **

**"If you find the young man she wrote this to, please give it to him. It was meant for him. He must be devastated. I know you probably think that we are unreasonably strict, but I do have a heart, Miss Watson. When I was Hadassah's age, I fell in love with a Gentile boy. It was the most difficult time of my life. I did not give in to him, but I came very close to it."**

**Joan took the note and put it into her purse, drank her glass of water and followed Mrs. Steiner back to the living room.**

**As Sherlock and Joan left the Steiner home, they saw Levy who was sitting on a stoop in front of the family grocery store a couple doors down and stopped to speak with him.**

**"So, Levy, why was your sister going to leave the faith?" Joan asked him. She paused for a long moment before continuing. "Did she fall in love with the wrong young man?"**

**His silence confirmed their suspicions.**

**"We need to talk with him. He would know who may have made a threat against your sister," Sherlock said.**

**Young Levy shrugged his shoulders and nodded toward a slender teenage Hispanic fellow who was easily carrying boxes of produce from a truck in the street into the store. Sherlock and Joan walked toward the young man and he stopped at their approach. **

**"His name is Carlos, Carlos Reyes," Levy had said as he got up from the stoop and walked away.**

**"Excuse us, you might be Carlos?" Sherlock said as they approached the handsome young Puerto Rican man offloading groceries from the truck parked near the grocery store.**

**"Yeah, what you want with me?"**

**"Young Levy there tells us that you knew his sister Hadassah who passed away last week. Do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm her?"**

**Carlos' eyes immediately filled and he turned away from Sherlock and Joan. It was obvious that he had had an emotional connection with the murdered girl.**

**"I don't know, man. I can't talk here."**

**"Here is my card. Come here this evening."**

**The young man took Sherlock's card and they left him there.**

**"Do you sense that something may have been going on between Hadassah and our young Carlos there?"**

**Joan nodded. "And that would have definitely been forbidden by her faith."**

**"Let's stop in the Steiners' grocery store. I want to just observe."**

**They walked into the typically kosher establishment and walked around a bit. They stood out among the people of the Williamsburg neighborhood. None the les****s, Joan picked out some pastrami and corned beef at the deli counter and they then walked to the cash register where a nondescript looking thirty-something bearded fellow with a nameplate that read "Moishe" was handling money matters.**

**"So, Moishe, is it, you know the Steiner family?" Sherlock queried.**

**"You are asking why?" Moishe answered curtly.**

**"We work with the NYPD and we are investigating the murder of young Hadassah Steiner."**

**"The Steiner family and our own council will handle matters. Our community attends to these matters. We have no need of the NYPD."**

**"Well, when a murder has been committed, the NYPD supersedes any neighborhood council. How well did you know the deceased young woman?"**

**There was a brief moment when an expression passed across Moishe's face that revealed something that Sherlock had begun to suspect. **

**"I was fond of Hadassah for a very long time. I had hoped that when she came of age, we could be married. Simple as that. No more, no less."**

**Joan peered at the man and then back at Sherlock.**

**"We will chat again perhaps, sir," Sherlock said as he paid the man.**

**Sherlock and Joan took a taxi back home and Joan handed the note to him to read as they rode along. **

_**"My dearest and only love, I cannot tell you how much I loved being with you yesterday. I know that things went beyond . . . but you only took what I freely gave to you. The pain was for but a moment, my joy forever. I will never give myself to anyone else, my dearest love.**_

_**Yours always, **_

_**DassahS**_

**They were preoccupied by their own thoughts as they rode the rest of the way back to the brownstone at the end of the day. It was easy to see what had probably happened between Hadassah and the handsome young Carlos.**

**It was after dark when Carlos Reyes showed up at the brownstone. Sherlock ushered him into the parlor where the young man sat down. He seemed to be rather uneasy.**

**"It was obvious today that something happened between you and the young lady in question. How did you become acquainted with her?"**

**"Well, nothing happened really at first . . . nothing serious. I work for this company that makes deliveries each week to the store. We would always just speak and then one day I was putting the produce in the walk-in fridge and she came in there. Sir, we just looked at each other, you know, and then she pushed me up against a box of grapefruit and we kissed. It was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me. Hadassah was so beautiful. I know she had seen me stare at her. She was so different from the girls I grew up around. Everything about her was a mystery. Her clothes completely hid her body, you know, skirts below the knee and tops that didn't show anything below her neck, but that didn't hide her body. But all that just made me curious. Then when she kissed me like that and pressed my hand against, her- her breast . . . her breast was so soft and. . . . everything inside me . . . you know, it all just came alive like fire in my belly that the first time."**

**Joan dropped her head and smiled to herself at the young man's description of the awakening of his youthful passions.**

**"Did anyone observe this . . . encounter, Carlos?" Sherlock asked.**

**"I know her cousin was in the store at the cash register. I don't know if he knew what happened. I had to get out of there or something else would have happened. The next time I made a delivery her cousin Moishe followed me as I put everything in place. Then he got in my face and told me to keep my filthy _schlong_ away from his cousin."**

**Sherlock went silent in a long moment of reflection. As he looked at Joan and saw the compassion in her eyes, it was a mirror of his own feelings at the sad results of a first youthful dalliance.**

**"We knew that we were in love, Mr. Holmes. We were sure of it. We planned to get married when she was able to leave home. We were both just nineteen. I had to be prepared to care for her."**

**"So you and Hadassah had opportunities to communicate otherwise?" Joan asked as they tried to understand the extent of the relationship between the two young people.**

**"She slipped a note to me when I made the delivery and gave me her cell phone number and we would talk hours on the phone. She said that she was in love with me."**

**"So you and Hadassah passed notes when he made deliveries to your parents grocery store on Lee Avenue." Joan stated as a fact.**

**Carlos nodded.**

**"Were you in love with her, son?" Sherlock asked with uncharacteristic tenderness. **

**"Yes, I was. She was the first girl I ever felt that way about. We started meeting over in the city when she went to take care of business for her family. We just wanted to touch each other, kiss, hold hands. No one knew except Levy, her twin brother. He is the one that warned me that her cousin, the one that worked in the store had told their father that he wanted to marry Hadassah when she was of age. She hated him. He accused her of having been with a non-Hasidic boy, a goy. He said that he could tell."**

**"You refer to Moishe, the man working at the cash register?"**

**"Yes, Moishe Weitz. He accused her of being with me, you know. But we hadn't touched each other like that then. I respected her and I loved her."**

**"You are sure that you and Hadassah did not eventually have intercourse?" Sherlock asked him directly.**

**The handsome Hispanic youth flushed in embarrassment and his shoulders slumped as he shook his head.**

**"I swear that we did not plan to. We saw each other and kissed and we t-touched each other, you know. But then that one time she put my hand under her sweater . . . against her breast, and I-I put my hand inside her bra, I couldn't help myself. And then, Oh, God, she touched me . . . down there, you know, and we completely lost control. We didn't plan for it to go that far. Honestly we just somehow ended up doing it." **

**Joan sensed the difficulty that Carlos was having explaining what happened between him and Hadassah and stepped out of the room for a moment to give him a private man-to-man moment with Sherlock.**

**"Continue, young man. A man of honor will not deny the truth in matters such as this. He will always take responsibility for his actions."**

**"I had never . . . never had sex and . . . I respected her, but she was so beautiful, Mr. Holmes. But I take responsibility for being with her like that. Suddenly it was like I was out of my head. I was inside her, shaking all over and crying out and she was too. I guess that we had an-an . . ."**

**"It's called orgasm, son. It is the culmination of what happens when a male and female successfully have sexual intercourse. It is meant to be a beautiful part of adult life," Sherlock stated as a matter of fact.**

**"I'm so sorry. I knew that she was a virgin. And I caused her pain in that moment, but she forgave me in the very next moment. I truly loved Hadassah and I respected her. We planned to run away from New York to get married when we were old enough. She called me her. . . her _bubbelah_," Carlos said, breaking down in tears as Joan came back into the room.**

**"It happened once and then . . . then the next time we just couldn't stop ourselves. Oh, God! Mr. Holmes, we completely lost control of the situation," Carlos said as he doubled over, dissolving in tears. "We saw each other . . . and then we were doing it. We couldn't stop ourselves. We had sex ten times . . . ten beautiful times. We started figuring how to use condoms and Dassah started taking the pill for protection."**

**Sherlock and Joan sat back and gave Carlos time to compose himself. It was obvious to them that he was badly shaken by what had happened to Hadassah.**

**"I couldn't even say goodbye to her. I couldn't go to her funeral because I was afraid of her people. I couldn't even tell my mother what had happened to us."**

**"What do you believe happened to her, Carlos?" Joan asked carefully.**

**"I don't know. Why would anyone hurt her? If she was hurt because of me . . . if I had known that would happen, I would never have let myself fall in love with her."**

**"Carlos, we often don't have a choice when it happens. When that chemistry exists, it exists. I have come to know that love is not something of human construct. Neither you nor Hadassah knew what happened to you when that hit you." **

**Sherlock and Joan felt the powerful energy pass between Sherlock and herself and in the same instant ****the young man's eyes registered the realization that the liaison between him and Hadassah had probably led to her death and he began to weep profusely.**

**"Carlos, I think that you should go home to your family and let us pursue this matter for the police. Just be . . . thankful that you have your memories, son," Sherlock said.**

**"I never knew my father, Mr. Holmes, nobody to teach me how to be a man. I completely lost control of the situation. I know that I made a terrible mess of things."**

**"It isn't easy, being a real man, Carlos. It takes some of us a while to learn. You have had a rough start, but it doesn't mean that you, you n-never will love again, that you cannot become a fine man." Sherlock stuttered a bit as he often did when his emotions took hold of him. "I think that this last note from Hadassah was intended for you." **

**Sherlock handed the young man the note that Hadassah's mother had found and Carlos. Unfolded it and read it and broke down completely in tears. Finally**** he unexpectedly fell into Sherlock's arms and hugged him. It was much to Sherlock's surprise, when Carlos, overcome with the loss of his first love in such a tragic manner, reached out to Sherlock as a sort of father figure.**

**After they finally closed the door behind Carlos Reyes, Sherlock sighed heavily and turned to Joan and took her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed it.**

**"I'll make a pot of coffee. I think we will need it tonight," Joan said.**

**"I think that we should go to bed, luv. Tomorrow will be soon enough to question cousin Moishe. He picked up on the release of tension in Hadassah and concluded that she had been intimate with someone." **

**"So the infamous gait test gave her away. She didn't even realize the effect being with her young man would have on her. Only someone who had sexual designs on her like Moishe would have noticed something like that."**

**"A tragic result for two beautiful young people who were impossibly drawn together," Sherlock sighed wearily as they walked toward the parlor. **

**"And Moishe?"**

**"He is probably arrogant enough to believe that he got away with murder . . . probably feels that his actions were justified. He is not going anywhere. I have no doubt that we will find that the skin found under Hadassah's fingernails will be a DNA match for him. And I have no doubt that we will find her missing braid of hair in his possession. It seems to be all too clear to me what happened. We will deal with all of this with Moishe Weitz tomorrow in company with Captain Gregson and Detective Bell at the precinct."**

**"So what will we do this evening?"**

**"If you permit me, I want to lie in bed with you now . . . and be thankful that I have found you, that love and the pain of love, '_liebe und liebes weh,'_ are summed up completely in you. Let's forget the coffee for now, luv."**

**Sherlock reached out, caught Joan's hand, and drew her close up against his body, kissing her passionately over and over, letting his hands wander over her and squeezing her hips as the kisses continued till they were both breathless.**

**"What do you think would have happened if we had met when you and I were teenagers, Sherlock?" Joan asked later as they lay in his bed in the afterglow of passionate intercourse.**

**"What just happened is what would have happened, Joan. We would have gotten into all kinds of mischief. Please don't tell me that you wouldn't have let me have my way with you," Sherlock said as he kissed her all over her breasts and then searched for her open mouth again. "I would have loved to have known you then, when you were a nubile adolescent just coming into your own as a woman."**

**"I didn't even have a boyfriend, Sherlock. No one had awakened all this in me. I just read books . . . and daydreamed. Do you remember feeling what young Carlos was feeling for the first time?"**

**"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember it vividly." Sherlock paused for a long moment in reflection. I was in school in London and I spent the holiday with a school friend. She was his sister, his older sister. Evelyn was her name. I was a suffering, fully developed virgin boy at eighteen and she was twenty-two. I remember being absolutely mesmerized at the sight of her hips swaying in that seductive way they did. I knew then why I wanted to be with a woman and I knew what that meant. It became crystal clear to me."**

**"And did you . . .?"**

**"She made things clear in no uncertain terms. She didn't love me but she enjoyed playing with me and teaching me and I never had any doubts about the the purpose of all of this after that," he said as he gestured in the direction of his genitalia. "But I had to meet and get to know and love a certain beautiful brown-eyed woman who would take me completely beyond anything I could have possibly imagined and now I truly am getting to know the purpose of all of it. It has taken you to help me to see how to make all the pieces fit, so to speak. They do fit, you know, luv. . . the pieces, all of them . . . our minds, our bodies. They . . . we fit perfectly."**

**Joan's eyes filled as she gathered him to her breasts.**

**"You _are_ my sweet, sweet _'bubbelah,_' "Joan said softly, as she ran her fingers through his hair.**

**"My dear Watson, I am anything but sweet," Sherlock said in his most Sherlockian manner.**

**"Oh, but you are sweet to me, baby. Why do you think I love you so much?," Joan said as she leaned down to kiss his forehead and hugged him.**

**"Dear Lord, Joan," Sherlock sighed as his whole psyche felt the warmth of Joan's love for him and his heart felt as if it would burst. "You have undone me."**

**The next day Gregson had cousin Moishe brought in for questioning and arranged for a search warrant for his apartment. The missing braid was located in the night table beside his bed. He was so arrogant that he had not even hidden it.**

**As Sherlock and Joan w****alked from the interrogation room after Moishe's confession, Sherlock turned to Joan. Her eyes were full.**

**"Joan?"**

**"I just was thinking about Carlos. He was so hurt. He probably needs a different job. Maybe we can use him as a messenger of some sort or find other odd jobs for him."**

**"Sure, we will. I understand. We will find something for him to do."**

**Joan caught Sherlock's hand causing him to stop in his tracks for a moment.**

**"One of these days you will be a great father, do you know that?"**

**"Do you really think so, luv?" Sherlock flushed uncharacteristically before he quickly recovered. "Come along here for a moment."**

**Sherlock drew Joan down a quiet hallway and into a seldom used interrogation room and shut the door behind them. Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her all over her face and then so hard upon her mouth that he took her breath away.**

**"We need to go home right now, Joan, don't you think?" Sherlock said, trembling slightly, wanting his Joan so badly at that moment that all other thoughts were blown out of his mind. "I am in such need of you."**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Pull of His Gravity Chapter 3**

**9,649 words**

**By phaedraphelan **

Summary: Sherlock and Joan deal with the repercussions in the Brooklyn community following the murder of Hadassah Steiner and this requires courage on the part of Sherlock. Sherlock and Joan continue to forge a deeper and deeper relationship. Please review and comment.

Disclaimer: "Elementary" is the artistic property of CBS and no infringement is intended.

**Sherlock and Joan were satisfied to solve the case of the young murdered Hasidic woman, Hadassah Steiner, but it left them saddened as well. Seeing young Carlos so grief stricken over the loss of his first love left them both quiet and somber as they made their way back to their brownstone home. Sherlock took Joan's hand and lifted it to his lips as they rode in their taxi.**

**"It is so very sad, Sherlock, isn't it? Seeing that young man left high and dry like that. He really loved her, you know. He may never find that kind of love again."**

**"Her name, Hadassah, meant 'fresh myrtle.' I don't doubt that she was in love with him. But he is young and he will find love again. I thought that I would never love again after Irene, but I had no idea what was in store for me. I met you and I couldn't believe it, but I loved you from the start, before I even knew what love was, before that I loved you, from that first day."**

**Sherlock leaned over and kissed Joan tenderly upon her lips as their cab crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. And Joan, who was craving his touch, his kiss, the very essence that was Sherlock, melted into him, wrapping her arm around his waist, letting her fingers work their way inside his jacket to pull his shirt from his pants so that she could find his warm hard belly and caress him there.**

**"You _are_ my sweet baby, my '_bubbelah'_ Joan whispered softly to Sherlock with a tenderness that made his heart leap in his chest. "I used to hear the Jewish girls I went to school with refer to their boyfriends that way. It is a special word that I had forgotten about till I heard Carlos mention that Hadassah called him her '_bubbelah.'"_**

**Sherlock sighed and moaned passionately as he deepened his kiss, overcome by his feelings for Joan.**

**"We really need to be at home. You know what you do to me," Sherlock gasped, as he tried to gain control of his surging libido so that he would be able to exit the taxi without embarrassment.**

**When they arrived home, they quickly exited the cab and ran up the steps to the brownstone together where Sherlock unlocked the front door, ushered Joan inside and slammed and locked the door behind them before pushing Joan up against the hallway wall and opening her mouth completely with his passionate kisses again.**

**"Oh, Joan, Joan, woman, I need to be with you now. Please attend to me, luv. God knows I feel as if I am going to burst from my trousers."**

**"Yes, Sherlock," Joan acquiesced, and Sherlock picked her up and carried her into his bedroom, kicked his own shoes off and got onto his bed with her, slipped her shoes off her feet and tossed them to the floor and then let his hand caress her from each of her tiny feet all the way up her slender calves, then her thighs, and beyond.**

**They stared into each other's eyes as they lay facing each other on the bed. Sherlock's pupils took up nearly all of his blue green irises and his nostrils quivered gently inhaling her essence as their gaze locked them into each other.**

**"I'm going to make love to you, Joan. I am going to help you disrobe so that I can finish touching you all over till you come apart in my arms that way that you do. Because I need you, my lovely Joan, as I have never needed anyone in my whole life. And I do love you as I never believed it possible to love another person."**

**"Sherlock, please, just put your arms around me and hold me that way that you do."**

**Sherlock's hands were shaking as he pulled Joan's tights and panties down and off her and pushed her sweater up and off and he cried in exultation as he found the soft breasts that he loved so, as Joan at the same time helped him loosen his trousers and shirt so that their bare flesh could have contact.**

**"Luv, I've been wanting to feel your skin against mine like this all day long. You make me tremble with the urgency of my desire for you."**

**"Sherlock, I'm here for you, baby. For whatever you need . . . whatever you want . . . I'm here. I want you so!"**

**The next moment Sherlock got on top of her and Joan felt him searching for and easily finding and penetrating her special place all at once as she welcomed him.**

**"Ooh, Ooh! Sherlock! Yes, baby, yes!" Joan wailed softly with each passionate thrust, gripping him, scratching him, her whole body beginning to vibrate out of control as she went into rapture in his arms and the bright blue lights of the climax exploded in her brain. **

**"God, Oh, God! Joan! Aargh! Aargh! I'm in such ecstasy! Joan! It's about to happen for me! I cannna hold it back, luv!"**

**"Please don't hold it back! Don't hold it back," Joan wailed.**

**Sherlock's roars of conquest resounded throughout their house as he found the very deepest part of her and felt that intense pressure in his testicles that portended his blessed moment of release, that moment of revelation when his whole brain seemed filled with white light that revealed his most basic need to be Joan in his arms.**

**Sherlock rolled onto his back so that Joan was on top of him as the spasms began to surge through his body and he gripped her hips, holding her fast onto him as his blue green eyes rolled back in his head and his teeth clattered in the pure ecstasy of that moment of ejaculation when his semen began to spurt upward into her, every crease disappearing from his face giving him the visage of beautiful twenty-year old man again.**

**"Sherlock . . . Yes! Yes! Oh, Sherlock!"**

**"Joan, luv . . . sweetness! You are sweetness! God, yes!"**

**"Ooh, Sherlock, I love you so much . . . so much," Joan sighed and moaned as she dissolved in surrender on his chest, totally conquered, completely taken.**

**Sherlock drew up the covers over them and they snuggled quietly as the afterglow settled over them. **

**"You bring me such satisfaction, luv," Sherlock murmured into Joan's ear as they lay together. "I cannot describe the sensation when we came together tonight. Were your needs satisfied, darling?"**

**"Yes . . . Sherlock. When you touch me . . . the way you do, you make me lose my mind. Sherlock . . . I love you . . . love you, love feel of you inside me . . . everything . . . "**

**"It was so beautiful seeing you totally gone like that. I felt the very moment when you gave your body to me. You just melted inside, luv . . . you were so soft, like warm wax, just melting around my flesh."**

**"Yes, oh, yes! I can't tell you what happens . . . so weak for you . . . love you so much. Oh, Sherlock . . . words cannot describe. . ."**

**"I have so many words . . . words to say to you, luv, words I have never said to another woman."**

**They continued to whisper softly to one another till they drifted off to sleep in the warmth of their lovers' embrace.**

**Sherlock and Joan were awakened shortly before 1:00 a.m. by their doorbell ringing.**

**"God! Who can that be?" Sherlock groaned. **

**He struggled to gain full consciousness as he got from his bed and stumbled about searching the room for a pair of trousers to pull over his naked body and grabbing his shirt from the foot of the bed. **

**"Oh, Sherlock, I'm in no shape to see anyone," Joan murmured from bed, still feeling the effects of their earlier sexual activity.**

**"Stay there, luv. I'll see who it is."**

**When Sherlock opened his front door, he was confronted with Carlos Reyes.**

**"Mr. Holmes, I'm scared . . . so scared!"**

**"Come in, Carlos."**

**Sherlock led the frightened young man into the house and to the parlor.**

**"What has happened?"**

**"They came by my job looking for me . . . men from the Hasidim. Someone told them that I was the one that Hadassah was seeing. They say they want to teach me a lesson. I can't go to my mom's house. I can't bring trouble to her like that. What can I do? Where can I go?"**

**"You have family in another part of the city, Carlos?"**

**"My uncle is in the South Bronx."**

**"Contact him and tell him that you need to stay with him for a while. Give this time to blow over. These people will not follow you to another part of the city. You can stay here for the rest of the night. We will talk in the morning. Just bed down here. There is a bathroom upstairs. I need to let my . . . partner know that you are here so that she can get back to sleep."**

**"You and Miss Watson . . . I could see that you are . . . in a .. . "**

**"We are a couple, Carlos," Sherlock stated as a matter of fact.**

**"Mr. Holmes, can I ask . . . when did you know, you know, that you wanted to be with her like that? I guess since this happened to me I just want to try to figure out this man/woman thing. It's obvious you and her care for each other."**

**"Actually, Carlos, I knew it the day I met her. It took a while to come to terms with it. I had not realized how important monogamy can be in your life. But I realize that now. I realize that you are a young man and after your recent introduction to sex it will be difficult to pull back from that now. But you will find that uninhibited sexual license is not the answer."**

**"What do you mean?"**

**"I mean you will never be satisfied just screwing any girl that will have you. It must be the right one, Carlos. You will not replace Hadassah soon in your life. Take the time now to learn self-control and prepare to be a man so that when you love a woman again it will have meaning, the kind of meaning you found with Hadassah."**

**"Thank you, Mr. Holmes."**

**Sherlock bade goodnight to Carlos and went back to his bedroom and lay down beside Joan.**

**"So who was that, Sherlock?"**

**"The young lad, Carlos Reyes . . . he is afraid for his life . . . from the Hasidic vigilantes who feel that his attachment to Hadassah Steiner led to her death. Somehow that has come to light. It is all very irrational, but nonetheless dangerous for him. He grew up in Williamsburg where the Jews and Hispanics live side by side, but do not mix on any social level. He violated that code and they want to make him pay. If they accost him, he will be the victim, not of one but of a group of men who will be all but impossible to prosecute."**

**"What can we do to protect him? He is quite a handsome young fellow. No wonder that Hadassah was attracted to him."**

**"True, but I don't know right now how to help him, Watson. But we have a house guest for the moment. I think that we should try to get some rest and deal with this in the morning."**

**Sherlock drew Joan onto his chest and she lay there listening to the thump thump of his heart beat in her ear as he smoothed her hair. **

**"We will help him, Sherlock. . . in the morning."**

**Joan drew Sherlock's hand to cup her breast and she sighed in response as his fingertips titillated her dainty nipples.**

**"Carlos asked me about 'us' and I thought about 'us' and how that I have loved you since the day we met. I . . . I need you, Joan Watson. I just . . . need you. I know it's very late and I don't want to impose upon your kindness toward me in my desperate moments, but . . . I am a pathetically needy man tonight."**

**Sherlock's hips pushed gently, but rhythmically against Joan's begging her to attend to his need, and she turned to face him and graciously welcomed Sherlock, tousling his hair, as he kissed her mouth with kiss after deep passionate kiss till he finally mounted her to make love to her quietly and gently in the early pre-dawn hours. **

**"Oh, Sherlock, yes . . . yes!" Joan moaned as her body quivered and shook as the climax rolled over her.**

**"Thank God, Joan. Thank God!" Sherlock whispered. **

**His body went rigid in a climax of blue and white lights as he spilled into Joan gasping and groaning in her arms as she melted in total surrender to him.**

**When the sun wakened Joan a few hours later, she realized that she was alone in their bed. The smell of coffee brewing wafted through the brownstone. Joan wrapped herself in her robe and went to prepare for the day. There was no sign of Sherlock or Carlos in the kitchen so Joan dressed and went to find them. **

**Sherlock and Carlos were on the roof and he was giving him an extensive explanation of bee society. Sherlock was an animated teacher and Carlos an avid student.**

**"Ah, Watson, come and enjoy the morning on the roof. It is a beautiful day despite any problems that exist for any of us. I was just introducing young Carlos here to the hives."**

**"Well, I made a pot of fresh coffee and there is toast and Sherlock can make some of his famous scrambled eggs. I guarantee you will like that. Why don't we have breakfast now?"**

**They descended to the kitchen and finished preparing breakfast together. Carlos seemed intrigued at observing the obvious very personal interaction between Sherlock and Joan, even as they tried to hide it from his eyes.**

**Finally Carlos just started to laugh at the two of them in spite of himself when they began to eat from each other's plates and drink from each other's coffee. Sherlock and Joan dropped their forks, stopped staring at each other and looked at him.**

**"We just happen to like everything the same way," they said, practically in unison.**

**Joan got up from the table to make more toast for their young hungry visitor and Carlos took the opportunity to speak a private word to Sherlock.**

**"Man, you and Miss Watson have a real case of it. I hope that one day I will find that again . . . with someone."**

**"You must wait. You wait for that person. Once, sometimes twice in a lifetime, you will know, Carlos. I'm old enough to be your father and Watson and I just found each other not so very long ago."**

**"So we are having a deep conversation on life and love it seems." Joan said brightly as she brought a second plate of toast.**

**"Yes, luv," Sherlock said, the endearment slipping easily from his lips as he unconsciously took her hand in his and kissed it. "There is so much to learn. But now our young friend must confront the devastating consequences of falling in love with the wrong young woman. He is currently a target of a group of vigilantes who want to exact punishment on him for his indiscretion."**

**"And you suggest?"**

**"I first suggested that he move in with his extended family in the South Bronx. But I don't think that is a good long term solution. I think that we need to visit the Steiner family again. Carlos, you would be wise to maintain a low profile till this all calms down."**

**"Sir, I would be glad to do some work for you here. I don't have any real money to pay you for your help. I give my mother the rent for our place, so there is not much left."**

**"Miss Hudson, our cleaning lady, is coming today. Just give her a hand with whatever she needs. Watson and I need to take care of some matters elsewhere today. Come along, luv," Sherlock said, not attempting to hide his giving Joan an affectionate pat on her shapely derrière as he led her from the room.**

**Sherlock and Joan headed first for the precinct to discuss the case with Captain Gregson.**

**"Captain, I would really like to speak with representatives of the Hasidic council about this situation . . . first to make them aware that we know of the threats they have made to young Reyes and then to appeal to them to retreat from their hard line position and recognize that times are changing and in spite of the fact of a terrible loss in this case that Carlos is not to blame for her death and that any harm that comes to him because of their vigilante efforts will be met with an immediate response."**

**"You can make an attempt, Holmes, but these people are pretty difficult to deal with."**

**"That is why we are going to speak with the Steiner family first and appeal to them to intercede in behalf of handsome young Carlos."**

**Joan looked at Sherlock with her eyes full of the pride she showed when he was especially courageous.**

**"Keep us in the loop, Holmes. We don't want to set these people's teeth on edge anymore than they already are."**

**"Sure," Sherlock said as he guided Joan from the precinct and out into the street.**

**They arrived at the Steiner's home in Williamsburg at around noon and sat down with Hadassah's parents.**

**"We are here to ask you to intercede in behalf of the young man who was involved with your late daughter, Hadassah, sir."**

**"And why should we concern ourselves with him, Mr. Holmes? He knew the rules, that he was not to involve himself in that way with one of our females."**

**"He was just nineteen years old and your daughter was a beautiful nineteen year old who took a fancy to him. No doubt you remember that time of your life. I certainly do. The unfortunate consequences of their actions have left you with a choice. You can call off the vigilantes who are looking for the young man to harm him or you can see your community involved in some very adverse publicity."**

**"It is really out of my hands, Mr. Holmes. We have a council which handles these matters."**

**"But you have input. You can 'call off the dogs,' so to speak. I respect that you have deep religious convictions, Mr. Steiner, but I cannot abide religious hypocrisy."**

**"Religious hypocrisy?"**

**"Yes, the religious hypocrisy I have documented in my observations of your male congregants picking up Hispanic prostitutes at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. This all seems to be a matter of 'the pot calling the kettle black' to me. That is the adverse publicity that I speak of now."**

**Mr. Steiner flushed in embarrassment at Sherlock's very precise account of facts that he could not deny. **

**Gertrude Steiner was weeping quietly, unable to handle the emotions she was experiencing.**

**"I don't want the boy to be hurt, Sol. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. I . . . I read her diary after it happened. She was determined to be 'with him.' We have known that boy all his life. We know his mother. We remember when his father was killed in the Iraq war." **

**"The council meets this evening. It is too late to bring all this up. I will not have my daughter's blood go unavenged."**

**"You know that we have found the murderer of your daughter. Her murder will be avenged. I would be happy to attend the meeting and speak in behalf of the young man."**

**"Here is the address for the meeting. If you present yourself there, I will introduce you and ask that you be permitted to speak."**

**"Fine. I will see you then, Mr. Steiner."**

**Sherlock and Joan left the Steiners'**** and headed for home.**

**"It's tragic, Watson, just tragic. That beautiful young woman did not have to die. I will not stand by and see Carlos hurt or even killed."**

**When they got back to the brownstone, Miss Hudson and Carlos had hit it off and finished giving the brownstone a thorough cleaning. Sherlock closeted himself to prepare himself to face the Hasidic Council and Joan lay down to rest. She needed to recharge her batteries so to speak to be ready to care for Sherlock's needs. She knew that he would need to be attended to when he would come home after the encounter with the council.**

**Carlos left to let his mother know his whereabouts so that she would not worry about him. He promised to report back to the brownstone by 9:00 p.m.**

**Sherlock went to the meeting of the council at seven o'clock in Williamsburg in one of their community meeting halls. He waited till the time when the Steiner family tragedy was brought up. Out of respect he donned a cap when he spoke to the council.**

**The rabbi who conducted the meeting was surprised that Sherlock Holmes would have the evident temerity to interject himself into such a community matter and asked why.**

**"Actually I have a somewhat personal interest in this case, because my partner and I were the ones that discovered the body of young Hadassah while walking near Peter Luger's. We were interested in the resolution of this case from the beginning. We have determined who committed this crime and put him in the hands if the criminal justice system where he can be prosecuted. Is this not enough pain and sadness for all involved? Do you really want to jeopardize the safety of another young person and risk the adverse publicity that would bring? I have discussed with Sol Steiner the nature of the adverse publicity that will come in the event Carlos Reyes is harmed."**

**There was uncomfortable silence from the council as Sherlock continued to speak. **

**"I must say that in that event I will use all of my resources, which are many to be sure, to identify the perpetrators of such a crime. I must assure you that this is a serious matter with me and the NYPD."**

**The council listened and during their deliberation Sherlock observed a man come to the group and give the chairman a message on a piece of paper.**

**The chairman of the council sighed and turned to report the information to the others and then he looked at Sherlock.**

**"Mr. Holmes, I understand what you are saying here. I find that unfortunately the young man in question has already been dealt with. Some things we cannot control. He has been taken to Brooklyn Hospital with his injuries."**

**Sherlock was incensed, but restraned.**

**"We will definitely deal with the perpetrators of this crime. You would be well advised to find them and attend to them yourselves before the NYPD. You have been adequately put on notice. You need to ask Sol Steiner how this whole situation developed so as to be aware of the true facts of the matter. I bid you 'good evening.'"**

**Sherlock snatched the obligatory cap from his head and left the council meeting and headed to Brooklyn Hospital to find out what had happened to young Carlos. On his way he phoned Joan and told her to meet him there. Joan arrived at the hospital at the same time as Sherlock and they immediately wen the emergency room where they were told that young Carlos was in surgery.**

**Joan approached the medical staff and found out that Carlos had been brought into the hospital emergency room unconscious and badly beaten all over his body. The doctors were trying to determine the severity of his head injury as well as make sure there was no internal bleeding. **

**"Sherlock, they have him in surgery."**

**Sherlock was beside himself with outrage at what had happened to Carlos, in spite of their trying to protect him. Finally he sat down beside Joan, but he was so jumpy and upset that Joan took his hand and held it tightly. He gradually calmed enough to recount the events of the council meeting.**

**"Watson, I am so incensed at this situation. They all but killed that boy because one of their young women fell in love with him! They made sure to hurt him but not to kill him, so as to make the search for a perpetrator a lower priority."**

**"Sherlock, try to remain calm. We cannot resolve this thing if our anger is carrying us. First we have to help Carlos recover."**

**At that moment the doctor came to them from surgery with the report on Carlos.**

**"He's out of surgery now and I feel certain that he will soon regain consciousness. He is in intensive care at least till he wakes up. He has a broken clavicle and a couple broken ribs. The other injuries are basically superficial, even though extensive. He is young and has a good chance at complete recovery."**

**"Do whatever is necessary, doctor. The expenses will be cared for," Sherlock said.**

**"Was this gang-related?"**

**"Yes, in a sense, but not your typical gang. He was the target of a group of vigilantes."**

**"Well, he's a lucky young man. You can go up to see him now."**

**Sherlock and Joan went up to see Carlos, who was still unconscious in intensive care. They sat by his bed for a long while not speaking, but just reflecting on the whole situation that had brought him to this life-threatening point in his life.**

**When it seemed that he was not going to waken, Carlos suddenly began to moan and cry softly.**

**"I'm . . . sorry, Dassah . . . so sorry . . . sorry."**

**Joan immediately called the intensive care tech and all were delighted to see Carlos come to full consciousness.**

**"Young man, you gave us a fright! Lord, I am glad to see you open your eyes," Sherlock exclaimed. "What happened to you?"**

**"I had to let . . . mom know I was safe. But they must have figured out how . . . to find me . . . so many."**

**"How many attacked you, Carlos," Watson asked gently.**

**"Donno . . . eight or ten maybe."**

**"Cowards," Sherlock muttered in disgust.**

**"I'm sorry . . . sorry, Mr. Holmes."**

**"Carlos, you rest now. We are just happy that you are alive. Let us take care of this matter."**

**Sherlock and Joan left the hospital and went by the precinct to report the matter involving young Carlos Reyes before going home. When they arrived at the brownstone it was well after midnight and yet they were so wired from the events of the evening that they were not able to go to bed. **

**Sherlock paced and paced, ranting about the injustices of life till finally Joan made him stop and dragged him off to his bed.**

**"Sherlock, you have to calm down. It is not your fault that Carlos was hurt. You have done all that you can do. I was so proud of your for going to that meeting to face that council."**

**"You were proud of me?"**

**"Always, I am always proud of you when you stand up for the underdog like you have in this case, when you show your lack of prejudice, your open-mindedness."**

**Sherlock continued to bounce restlessly on the bed till Joan reached for his hand and held it tightly just under her breasts and Sherlock immediately stopped and stared at her and then wrapped her in his arms and kissed her hard on her mouth.**

**"I'm sorry . . . so sorry, Joan, for what happened to that boy."**

**"We will take care of that tomorrow. Tonight I have you in this bed and I am going to calm you down. Let me calm you, baby."**

**Sherlock lay stiffly beside her in his bed, still unable to relax.**

**"Sherlock, I want to make you feel really good." She took his hand. "Will you please just let me get on top of you now?"**

**"I can't relax. I can't think about anything else. I'm sorry, Watson."**

**"Sherlock . . . Sherlock, it will work out. Just let it go for now, baby. Let it go."**

**"Umm, Joan . . . ummm," Sherlock sighed as he felt the softness of Joan's body on top of his and inhaled the scent that he knew so well mingled with the fragrance of her perfume. **

**Joan kissed him tenderly over and over till suddenly Sherlock groaned out loud, completely engaged, forgetting everything except the woman on him riding him to passionate oblivion.**

**The next day the first order of business was to visit the precinct and let Captain Gregson know what had transpired, then on to the hospital to check on Carlos, who they found ****awake and alert although he was black and blue all over from the beating he had suffered.**

**"I want to know if you heard anyone call anyone by name when you were attacked. Anything that would help identify your assailants will be helpful."**

**"I didn't hear any name I recognized. Someone called someone on the phone just as I passed out. He said to tell Yosef that it was done."**

**"That is very helpful, Carlos. We want the leader of the group of vigilantes as well as the Hasidic community leaders to know that we know who he is," Sherlock said sharply.**

**"When can I leave this hospital, Miss Watson? I don't want to be here."**

**"You can come home with us tomorrow. They want to run a few more tests, make sure there are no undiscovered internal injuries."**

** Carlos became suddenly pensive and tearful, breaking down completely.**

**"What's the matter?" Watson asked.**

**"It's just that I thought about this whole thing, and you know what? I would not have changed a moment for what happened with me and Hadassah. I don't care if they had killed me. I wish that they had killed me. Without Dassah I don't care what happens to me."**

**"Well, young man, I understand your feelings , but be thankful that they did not kill you . . . and be thankful that you did get to know young Hadassah. I wish there were more that I could say or do, but there is not. Life is not fair or just."**

**Sherlock was at a loss for words at the sight of the young grief-stricken man and he turned away and stared into the distance and stepped out into the hallway outside Carlos' room.**

**Joan looked up at Sherlock, always fascinated when he revealed the compassionate side of his persona. She found him extremely attractive on this day. They had given attention to their passionate needs early that morning, and yet she knew that they both needed more, that he was still as thoroughly stimulated by her in every way as she was by him. When they allowed their eyes to meet, the effect was so startling that they were forced to try to avoid that kind of contact.**

**"Is everything all right, Watson?" Sherlock asked gently, aware himself that his beautiful partner was quite flushed at the moment.**

**"I guess, Sherlock," Joan replied.**

**"I'll get you a bottle of cold water. You seem somewhat . . . warm? Perhaps you are running a temperature?"**

**"Thank you," Joan said, watching him as he turned to go to the nearby vending machine to get water for her.**

**For some reason that Sherlock himself was unaware of this day, even the fit of this particular pair of his khaki pants which were of a fabric containing spandex, thus allowing his thighs to stretch them a bit, and causing them to cling somehow to his round firm buttocks was distracting to Joan. His hips had been unusually well developed by his exercise with single stick and ****attracted her attention again and again. Now that Joan had become intimate with Sherlock, in moments like this when she looked at him, nothing was left to the imagination and the effect was instant and powerful in the pit of her stomach, a tiny gasp escaped her and she bit her lips as she recalled the sensation of his hard muscled hips contracting against hers in that supreme moment when he was carried away with his passions.**

**Sherlock returned with the cold bottled water and gave it to her, still regarding her intently.**

**"Watson? I think I should visit the Hasidic Council again this evening and present the information that we have to them. Perhaps we should go somewhere for lunch now."**

**"I want to be with you . . . but do we have to have lunch?" Joan asked softly.**

**Sherlock immediately picked up on Joan's state of interest and gave her his complete attention.**

**"Luv, do you have . . . 'needs' today? You are keen, aren't you?"**

**Joan flushed suddenly and uncharacteristically beneath his attentive gaze. Her normally bold nature in sexual matters sometimes vanished in the face of her profound attraction to Sherlock. She was wearing a simple black leather skirt and a soft blue cashmere sweater and her hair was pulled up into a pony tail, but all Sherlock saw now was the desire for him in her eyes as he realized that she was in dire need of his attention and the like response in the pit of his stomach stunned him.**

**"My God, Joan, let's go to the Chatwal and have lunch sent up. We can take care of these other matters later."**

**They left Brooklyn Hospital and took a taxi to go to The Chatwal, Sherlock's blue green eyes twinkled and he smiled sagely as he regarded his flushed partner at his side, filing this incident away in his mind for future reference and analysis of this woman that he loved.**

**"You are quite beautiful, Joan, but when you are so stimulated, you are positively ravishing to behold," Sherlock said to her in a gentle tease as he leaned even closer using his superior olfactory gifts to inhale the scent of her arousal. **

**"It's you in these pants, Sherlock. I love you in these pants."**

**This time it was Joan who found herself rubbing his thigh through the khaki fabric, and it now was Sherlock who gasped sharply and immediately had to cross his legs in an attempt to quell the resulting powerful reaction in his flesh.**

**"It's only noon, luv, and you have me at a distinct disadvantage here because I am about to experience extremely visible consequences to your rubbing my thigh. As it is, I will have to carry my jacket in front of me in the interest of common decency."**

**Sherlock bent to kiss Joan as they rolled up to the hotel. He had called ahead and so he quickly took care of the business with the concierge and led Joan up to their room. He caught Joan by the hand, smacked her soundly on her hind parts and kissed her passionately in the elevator as it soared to their floor.**

**They went into their room and Sherlock scooped Joan up into his arms as he strode to the bedroom where he carefully deposited her on the bed and then they both proceeded to undress each other playfully.**

**"Woman, you fascinate me," Sherlock murmured as he pinched her firm hips over and over. "You fascinate me every moment I live with you. You are in dire need today, aren't you?"**

**"Yes, I am. And you fascinate me so, Sherlock. I just couldn't stop looking at your behind today."**

**"My hind parts? You were staring at my nether parts?"**

**Joan nodded, and dropped her head and Sherlock chuckled softly and tipped her chin up so that he could look into her brown eyes.**

**"My dear Watson, forgive me for not being more aware. We must take care of this straightaway."**

**Sherlock laid Joan back on the bed and crouched over her, kissing her over and over as she squeezed his muscled hips again and again, enjoying the feel of the soft curly hair that decorated them.**

**"Mmm, you know that I think of Michaelangelo's David when I see these hips straining against your pants. Of course I think you easily win any contest when it comes to the full frontal view. You have quite a package there, you know," Joan said boldly. "Sometimes, just knowing it's there, I can't ignore it."**

**Sherlock flushed as he heard Joan's assessment of his "gifts" to her.**

**"Oh, Joan . . . Joan! Oh, God, Joan!" Sherlock groaned as she held him, stroked him and then guided him inside her.**

**Sherlock gripped Joan passionately as he took her, caught up in his emotions as he made love to her, bringing her to the edge of the climax again and again and then retreating and bringing her again to the very edge till she was pleading, moaning, begging him to take her all the way.**

**Sherlock rolled off Joan and lay beside her, smiling, watching her need him.**

**"Sherlock . . . Please don't play with me, baby. Just take me the rest of the way. You know where I want to go. I need this so badly today . . . just the sight of you today with those pants stretched over your buns was absolutely too much for me . . . Oooh, Sherlock!" Joan wailed, her teeth chattering. "Oooh!"**

**"I'm afraid I'll hurt you . . . I'm so aroused . . . seeing you like this. I can't hold back, luv. Oh, God, Joan!"**

**"It's all right. Give me bruises, baby! I will . . . forgive you every . . . bruise . . . every single mark. Oooh!"**

**Sherlock kissed her again and again catching her behind her head, holding her as his mouth explored the tender membrane just inside her lips, nipping her gently. **

**"Sherlock!" Joan climbed up on him and took him, claimed him as her own, impaling herself upon his tumid member again all at once.**

**Sherlock gasped and snorted as his passions surged out of control, as he grasped her with all his power as they rocked together. They climbed to the heights and they both cried out loud in the privacy of the sumptuous hotel room when those blue and white lights exploded in their brains.**

**Sherlock groaned softly, cradling Joan when she went completely limp upon him in his arms in her moment of surrender, kissing her open mouth with deep kiss after kiss as he held her while his ejaculation ebbed till finally they lay quiet, staring into each other's eyes as the afterglow swept them.**

**"Is milady satisfied?" Sherlock asked in her ear. "I do aim to please."**

**"You always satisfy me, baby . . . always," Joan whispered softly. "I. . .I just needed you in the worst way."**

**They slept for an hour and then wakened to eat and to make love again before they finally left the hotel late in the afternoon before they went to the precinct to meet with Gregson on the situation with Carlos Reyes.**

**"I was trying to contact you earlier but neither you or Watson were answering your phone," Gregson said.**

**"Watson had a matter that I had to help her with this afternoon." **

**Sherlock flushed briefly and immediately realized that his friend, the captain, had discerned their situation when he saw the unmistakeable radiance in Joan's aspect ****when they came to the precinct together.**

**"Sherlock, you be sure to take care of Watson. If that means you are MIA for a few hours, so be it. Now what do we have on this case?"**

**"Well, we do have a name. Carlos heard them call someone named Yosef to confirm that they had delivered Carlos his punishment just before he passed out. I will present this information to the council in a couple of hours."**

**"I'll have Marcus run that down. It shouldn't be too difficult. We do have some insiders in that community who will know exactly who this 'Yosef' is."**

**"Watson and I will check on Carlos again before heading home. She thinks we should take him on as an intern. He went through a horrific beating from those vigilantes and yet he is not bitter, just a very sad young man, devastated by a tragic loss."**

**"Keep us posted. The Hasidic Council will have to handle this matter or we will handle it."**

**A relaxed and radiant Watson came back into the conference room to find Sherlock and Gregson just smiled as they left the room together, trying desperately to refrain from touching each other.**

**Carlos was considerably improved, so much so that it was decided that he could be released to Sherlock and Watson. They called a taxi and took him along to the brownstone where they ensconced him in the spare upstairs bedroom so that he would have easy access to the bathroom in his injured state.**

**"I am going to visit that council in Williamsburg again this evening. I will apprise them of young Carlos' condition and the fact that we know the name of the ringleader of the group that assaulted him."**

**"Be careful, Sherlock. Don't push them too hard. Or they will not accept it."**

**"I'll be careful, luv," Sherlock said as he bent to kiss Joan before leaving.**

**It was nearly eight when Sherlock arrived at the meeting and quietly took a seat. The chairman took note and recognized him.**

**"Mr. Holmes, I believe. You are here representing the NYPD to report on your findings?"**

**"Yes, I am. The young man, Carlos Reyes, was horrifically beaten. He was just released from Brooklyn Hospital this afternoon. Thankfully, due to his youth he will probably completely recover. The name of the person who ordered the 'hit' was heard in the course of the assault, a certain Yosef. I am sure that your sources will know this person and that you will take care of this matter. We will find him, sir, and bring him to justice. That is the total of my report at this time."**

**"Thank you, Mr. Holmes. The council will attend to this matter. The appropriate individual or individuals will present themselves to the NYPD within a few days."**

**Sherlock excused himself from the council and took a taxi home, fully convinced that justice would be served in one way or the other.**

**When he arrived home, Joan was waiting for him.**

**"That was an exhausting experience, Watson. I am hopeful that I have left this case so that others will be able to see that justice is served, although I strongly suspect that our 'Yosef' will have a trip out of the country to protect him. Some problems are just not easily solved."**

**"Sit, Sherlock, and I will bring you a hot cup of Earl Grey," Joan said, as she knelt to take off his shoes.**

**"Umm, such a pleasure to come home to you, luv, to the only reality in my life," he said as he accepted the tea from her as she knelt in front of him in the traditional Chinese manner.**

**Joan sat on the floor leaning against his leg as they both drank their tea. There was nothing else that needed to be said on this night. Finally Joan stood up and extended her hand to him and led Sherlock off to his bed.**

**Before falling asleep, Sherlock drew Joan into his arms and kissed her tenderly.**

**"Thank you, luv, for being here for me. I find myself completely exhausted physically and emotionally."**

**"Me too," Joan murmured sleepily.**

**"Did I hurt you today? I was quite carried away."**

**"Not really. I will be fine."**

**"Let me see, luv," Sherlock insisted, drawing back the bed covers and then pulling up her sheer cotton nightgown so that he could see her body. **

**There were blue bruise marks on her hips where he had gripped her in the throes of his passion.**

**"My darling Joan, I am so sorry," Sherlock's eyes were full as he realized that he had left bruise marks on Joan. "Please forgive me . . . please."**

**"I forgave you when it happened. I didn't even feel it. I love you so much, Sherlock."**

**Sherlock kissed her bruised hips and drew her nightgown down over her.**

**"Wake me in a couple hours and I promise you I will take care of your libido in decent fashion."**

**"Umm, I know you will, baby," Joan whispered as she ruffled Sherlock's hair with her fingers and began to drift off to sleep.**

**And at about four a.m. Joan wakened in Sherlock's arms. Sherlock was kissing her all over her face and breasts, begging her to waken and let him have his way with her.**

**"Please, luv, I need you . . . need you. Help me get through this night, luv."**

**"Umm, Sherlock . . . Sherlock . . . yes, baby."**

**Soon they were both caught up in the age old rhythm of a man and woman joined together in coitus, confirming their love once again as they cried out in the darkness.**

**"Oh, God! Joan, my Joan!" Sherlock snorted loudly as his body was wracked with one guttural groan after another. "Yes . . . yes, Joan!"**

**"Yes, Sherlock, yes!"**

**They both trembled as the climax shook them and tossed them over the brink into sheer rapture. **

**"Dear sweet Sherlock . . . sweet Sherlock," Joan sighed as she surrendered completely to him, floating in his embrace as he tenderly kissed her again and again and then, as the intensity of his kisses increased again, she gripped his shoulders, digging her nails into him.**

**"Ooh, Sherlock, you're not done with me yet, baby, are you?" Joan moaned softly.**

**"No, I'm not done, luv. I need more . . . more."**

**Suddenly they were both wide awake and fully engaged in intercourse again with Sherlock thrusting and Joan responding to each thrust with tiny squeals and gasps of delight that captured Sherlock's heart completely. Their passions did not begin to calm until day was breaking when they fell into an exhausted sleep again.**

**Late the next morning Joan wakened to find that Sherlock was already up. She stretched slowly, enjoying her body's responses. In the beginning she was often sore after a vigorous session with Sherlock, but her body had adjusted and now she felt no ill effects, only a tremendous and delightful sense of well being and satisfaction.**

**Sherlock came into the bedroom wearing his worn blue woolen robe and smiled at the woman in his bed. **

**"Ah, we are awake, luv."**

**"Yes, I am, Sherlock," Joan said as she stretched seductively in the way that she now knew pushed all of Sherlock's "buttons."**

**Sherlock climbed onto the bed and drew down the sheet that was covering her. He loved her when she looked like this, her long hair tossed all over, her face fresh from sleep and still bearing that look of satisfaction from the attention that he had given her during the early morning hours, her eyes signaling that she was open to whatever he wanted to do with her at that very moment.**

**"You are so beautiful when you waken in the morning. Did I ever tell you that?"**

**"You always tell me that, but I never get tired of hearing those words from your . . . your lips."**

**"Might you accept company there in bed?" **

**Joan nodded her acceptance, throwing the covers back and when she pulled up her knees in welcome, Sherlock gasped and his nostrils dilated at the sight of the lush forest that decorated her private parts once again.**

**"I think you are overdressed, lover," Joan said simply. "I want to look at you too. It's nice in broad daylight, isn't it?"**

**"It's more than that," Sherlock said as he slipped his robe off and tossed it aside. "You appeared to be quite taken with my hind parts yesterday."**

**Joan blushed and the flush went all the way down to her dainty breasts as she nodded and caressed his muscular hips and squeezed them hard.**

**"I couldn't stop thinking about them, and your pants were a bit tighter than usual. Gosh, Sherlock, I love the way you look! Don't you know that?"**

**"Perhaps I am entranced with your hind parts as well."**

**"You never said . . . in specific terms . . ."**

**"The fact that I have not given a dissertation on your lovely arse in no way means that I am not very aware of its features. There is so much to say. Hopefully we will have a lifetime to say these things, to touch one another, to bring pleasure to one another . . . But Joan, luv, will you do something for me? Will you mind kneeling up for me? I have never asked you to, because I love to look at your face when we have coitus, but I would love to give attention to your lovely buttocks from that position if you will permit me."**

**Joan smiled and turned over and knelt in front of Sherlock and he knelt behind her and began to kiss and rub her all over her hips.**

**"Such perfect lovely nates . . . a gorgeous arsed woman," he murmured as he continued to kiss her all over her hind parts, causing Joan to whimper and wiggle her hips helplessly.**

**Then Sherlock smacked Joan's bare bottom hard and she squealed with delight and continued to shake her behind for him as he smacked her hard again.**

**"Oh, Sherlock . . . Sherlock," Joan moaned, "you know . . . so many things, so many things to do to me. I love you to smack my behind like that."**

**"Why do you like that, luv? ****I have imagined this many times, luv, and more besides this."**

**"Because I know my behind belongs to you. You're my man, so you can smack my butt whenever you want to. It just goes all through me when you do that." **

**Sherlock knelt forward over Joan and suddenly he was inside her and the most incredible sensation gripped Joan as he used her in this different position so that she trembled and trembled and cried out as the pleasure was unspeakably intense.**

**"Oh, Sherlock . . . Sherlock, have mercy," she gasped.**

**"Luv . . . luv," Sherlock groaned.**

** Sherlock wrapped his arms around her and held them in the perfection of this connection,**** thrusting at will till the climax came and took them both, leaving Joan with his semen streaming down her thighs.**

**"Joan, I love you, woman." **

**Sherlock took Joan down off her knees and crouched over her, kissing her so deeply, with such hunger that Joan lost her head, writhing in ecstasy, her eyes rolling about in her head, her capitulation complete. **

**Sherlock fell beside her, exhausted for the moment, reaching for Joan's hand and holding it to his lips.**

**"Thank you for allowing me explore your lovely hind parts. Thank you for giving me the pleasure of smacking your arse. When I do that, I want you to know that you are my woman and I want everybody else to know it too. I hope you realize now that I am quite entranced with your own lovely derrière and all its parts. I will never in my life forget your kneeling for me and letting me have my way with you."**

**Sherlock then drew Joan up on top of him and continued to kiss her over and over and Joan got onto him and gave herself to him completely, pushing down onto his still ready member, her body completely flushed, perspiration dripping from her armpits and between her breasts as she threw back her head, consumed with the enjoyment of his flesh inside her.**

**"Ooh, Ooh, Sherlock . . . Sherlock!" she cried as she began to quiver as spasm after spasm seized her.**

**Sherlock drew her down onto his chest as the same spasms caught him and held him captive.**

**Sherlock had forgotten they had a house guest as his passions escalated.**

**"Dear God, help us! God, please!" he cried out. **

**Sherlock's eyes rolled back into his head in the moment of the apogèe**** as his body jerked upward and his life force spurted from him, till finally the two of them just lay together quietly whispering to each other in the bright morning sunshine that was coming through the window by his bed as an incredible peace settled over them. Everything was in the open, in the bright light of day and they both had everything they wanted, everything they both needed. There was a sense of fullness emotionally, a sense, a knowing that whatever the other needed would be gladly and generously given.**

**"You are incredibly gracious to me, my dearest Joan. Your sensual gifts are the most beautiful thing I have ever received in my life. Do you know that, luv?"**

**"Umm, Sherlock, I will give you whatever you need, whatever you want . . . I love you so much."**

**"And I pledge to satisfy all your needs as a woman . . . whenever you need me. I will not let you suffer the way you did yesterday, wanting, suffering like that. Don't let me ignore your needs, luv. It was quite intense, what you were feeling, was it not? You walking around hot like that?"**

**"Every time I looked at you I imagined how it feels when I am with you and you are carried away, taking me the way that you do. I could not focus on anything else when I looked at you. You are a beautiful man, Sherlock . . . your lean hard body, all the chestnut hair everywhere, your tattoos, your blue green eyes that see everything, your muscular hips . . . the way you push and thrust that way you do, when you fill me so with your beautiful Jade stalk that I can barely accommodate you . . . "**

**Joan blushed now and Sherlock did as well, covering Joan's mouth with tender kisses to keep her from saying any more about his physical attributes.**

**"I think about you to distraction these days . . . your beautiful eyes, the way your lashes flutter when you are overwhelmed with passion . . . the way your mouth opens to mine when we kiss . . . your thick black hair that lies all over my chest when you sleep in my arms, the softness of your lovely breasts with their dusky flowerlike haloes that crinkle when my lips touch them. I see them and I just want to suckle your tender udders. It's, its . . . all of you, the way you swing your arse when you walk without even thinking . . . and that part of your body . . . that Jade Gate, that garden of exquisite delight that brings me ultimate pleasure.**

**Sherlock eased downward so he could suckle at Joan's breasts and embrace her around her hips as they lay on their bed. They were both completely bathed in the morning sunlight from their bedroom window as they quickly became lost in their passions again.**

**Later that day Sherlock got a call from Captain Gregson as they were having lunch with Carlos who was quickly rebounding from his injuries. **

**"Well, they got Yousef at Kennedy getting on a flight to Israel. He will have to take the whole rap if he won't give states evidence as to who the attackers were. Thanks for your help on this one, Sherlock."**

**"Time will tell if this has any long time effect on the vigilante activity such as Carlos experienced," Sherlock offered sagely before closing his phone.**

**"They arrested Yousef at Kennedy airport. The wheels of justice have been set in motion," Sherlock said to Joan and then turned to Car****los. "I think you need an education, young man. Think about what you would like to study. Watson and I will assist you to obtain the schooling you need. If it is necessary to move your mother to another apartment in a different neighborhood, we will assist you along those lines as well. You don't need to live in Williamsburg any longer."**

**"Thank you, sir. I will try to be worthy of the help you have given me."**

**"You may stay here till you recuperate and relocate."**

**Joan looked at Sherlock and her approval of his plan was obvious as she got up to remove the lunch dishes from the table.**

**Sherlock followed her from the table and hugged Joan from behind and pushed her hair out of the way and kissed her upon her neck as she stood washing the dishes. Joan tried to pretend to resist his blandishments, but was not at all convincing.**

**"Sherlock, please let me take care of these dishes. I'll . . . I'll attend to you later. You are going to embarrass Carlos, baby."**

**Sherlock stood back, duly chastised for the moment, the man who never wanted to touch anyone, the man who had always fled from intimacy, unable to resist cuddling up to Joan. **

**"Carlos, make yourself comfortable. Joan and I are going to take the rest of the afternoon to give some needed attention to the hives on the roof, and to one another. We will see you later in the day, young man."**

**Carlos smiled as he limped from the table and left Sherlock and Joan to their own mysteries. His father had died when he was in preschool and this was the first time in his life that he had observed a mature male/female relationship at close range, and the whole thing fascinated him and was teaching him important ****lessons about life.**

**Sherlock turned back to embrace Joan now that Carlos had left the room. He could not resist her for another moment, turning her around to face him and kissing her full on her mouth as he smacked her gently on her shapely hind parts. **

**"Woman . . . I need, need to be with you, woman. . . please."**

**They savored the taste of the Earl Grey in each other's kiss and when they finally did come up for air, Sherlock picked her up in his arms and began to walk toward his bedroom.**

**"I thought we were going to the roof. . . to check the hives . . . and . . ."**

**"I changed my mind, luv," Sherlock murmured as he carried her off to his bed.**


End file.
